"125 Reasons to Love Vancouver" - Vancouver Magazine, June 2011 - by Ayden Fabien Férdeline

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To

It was exactly 125 r go,

in 1886, that the little town o Gran-

ville was incorporated as the City

o Vancouver. Its natural beauty, its

location as a transportation hub, its

abundant orests, and its gold- and salmon-

laden waterways ensured a vibrant uture. Liv-

ing here, o course, makes it easy to notice the

city’s faws while taking its charms or granted.

But anniversaries are or celebrating, so we’ve

looked beyond the clichés and “most livable”kudos to come up with 125 things that make

the city unique— 25 on these pages, and 100

more at Vanmag.com. No doubt we’ve over-

looked some o the reasons you love Vancou-

ver. We’d love to hear what those are.

Because our firstcouncil had foresight

Vancouver city council wasinaugurated on May 12, 1886. Intheir first piece of business, the

10 aldermen, led by a real-estate-baron mayor (Malcolm MacLean),

resolved to ask the federal govern-ment for use of an area designated

a military reserve (in case of Amer-ican invasion). Ottawa agreed,

and two years later, Lord Stan-ley—Canada’s governor general at

the time—dedicated those 1,001

acres to “the use and enjoyment of peoples of all colours, creeds, and

customs, for all time.” In 2008,we renewed our lease on Stanley

Park—99 years for $1. It’s the bestland deal in the country, for one of

the world’s great urban parks.

Because we haven’tfelt the big one—yet

Hell hath no fury like the Ring

of Fire, that parabola of seismicenergy that encompasses the

Pacific Ocean. Of the 173 major

earthquakes recorded last year,only 21 were centred elsewhere.

Just off the coast of VancouverIsland, three tectonic plates are

pushing and pulling to an inevi-table, earth-shaking conclusion.

Yet we haven’t had a really major

shaker since January 26, 1700,when a massive quake (perhaps 9.2

on the Richter scale) devastatedthe west coast of Vancouver Island.

Not many cities along the Ring of Fire have gone as long as we have

without experiencing a big one.Knock wood.

Because we invented anOlympic sport, and turnedit into a video game

At Blackcomb Mountain in 1991,

Steve Rechtschaffner and Greg

Stump were in a bind. They wereshort one episode of Greg Stump’s

World of Extremes TV series forFox. Rechtschaffner came up with

a scheme to have six snowboard-ers race down a course with banks

and jumps. Fast-forward a coupleof years: now a producer at Elec-

tronic Arts Canada, Rechtschaffnerdecided to turn the sport into

a video game. SSX debuted as alaunch title for Sony’s PlayStation 2

console in 2000, and snowboard

cross debuted at the Winter Olym-pics in 2006. Athletes like Maëlle

Ricker, who won gold in the event

at the 2010 Games, still refer to itby its original name: boardercross.

Reas

By Ayden Fabien Férdeline,

Frances Bula, Neal Giannone,

Blaine Kyllo, and Jim Sutherland


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JoeZeff(Loveillustration);AmandaSkuse(photo);AnyaEllis(hair&

m a k e u

p ) a n d M e l i s s a P e d d l e ( m o d e l ) c o u r t e s y L i z b e l l a g

e n c y . c o m

This CityBecause Darlene Marzarikilled “urban renewal”

Back in 1968, the city was work-ing on a plan: move thousands

of people out of their Strathconahomes and flatten everything south

of Prior Street to make way for a 30-foot-high, 200-foot-wide, six-lane

freeway from Highway 1 to Burrard

Inlet downtown. The roadblocks:area residents, many of them Chi-

nese Canadians; Mike Harcourt,then a 25-year-old storefront law-

yer who would become Vancouver’smayor and then B.C.’s premier; and

Darlene Marzari, a London Schoolof Economics grad who’d been

hired by the city’s planning depart-ment to find new homes for the

Strathcona evictees. In community

meetings, Marzari came to see thatthis “urban renewal” would be a

disaster. She switched teams, help-

ing lead opposition to the project,then went on to serve 10 years as an

NDP MLA. Vancouver remains the

largest metropolis in North Amer-ica without a city-core freeway.

Because we call bullshit

When the B.C. government aired

its “Forests Forever” ads in the1980s, filmmakers Kalle Lasn and

Bill Schmalz fought back with

contrarian spots denouncing treefarms. The CBC called their ads“opinion” and refused to air them.

So began the Adbusters MediaFoundation: magazines with

editions around the world, anti-consumerist ad and live-action

campaigns, even a brand of run-ning shoe. Twenty years earlier,

when Mayor Tom “Terrific” Camp-

bell tried to stop the kids fromhaving fun and getting high, the

alternative weekly Georgia Straightwas born. And 20 years after For-

ests Forever, Thetyee.ca took thedetection of bullshit online.

ons

right now!



J i m L a B o u n t y ( l e a p i n g m a n ) ; S a r a h M u r r a y ( S a m

S u l l i v a

n )

Because we climbevery mountain

The cliché is that you can golf and

play tennis and go skiing, all in the

same day. Some of the continent’s

best kayaking and hiking is rightat our doorstep, and people comefrom all over to go mountain biking

on the North Shore. God’s Stair-Master (aka the Grouse Grind) is

thick with climbers all season long,and an astonishing 50,000 people

did the 2011 Sun Run. We don’t just look at the mountains and the

ocean—that’s why we have the low-est obesity rate and the highest life

expectancy in Canada.

Because Dak Leon Mark wanted his money back

Beginning in 1885, Chineseimmigrants were charged a head

tax, which started at $50 andincreased tenfold by the 1920s.

(No other group was so targeted.)In 1983, Dak Leon Mark, who

had paid $500 to enter Canada,

presented his receipt to his localMP, East Vancouver NDPer Mar-

garet Mitchell. Reading the newCharter of Rights and Freedoms,

Mark believed he deserved reim-bursement, and Mitchell took his

request to Pierre Trudeau. By the1980s, more than 4,000 people

across Canada had joined a class-action lawsuit seeking an apology

and symbolic financial redress.Mark died before the issue was

resolved, but on June 22, 2006,

Prime Minister Stephen Harperapologized for our country’s unfair

treatment of Chinese immigrantswho, he said, came here seeking to

build a better life.

Because we value books

Traditional book publishing’s been

gutted by the Internet, yet Doug-las & McIntyre soldiers on, the

last major Canadian independenthouse standing. Book tours have

gone the way of the dodo, andauthors are told to do their own

marketing—start a blog, use Face-book and Twitter— yet the Vancou-

ver International Writers Festival

grows bigger and better each year.Independent bookstores close, yet

kumusta

ka?

125 Reasons To Love This City

the quirky MacLeod’s remains abibliophile’s treasure chest. And

some of the country’s best writ-

ers—Steven Galloway, Ann Ireland,Lee Henderson, Zsuzsi Gartner,

Madeleine Thien—got their start

through UBC’s creative writingprogram, where nary a word is saidabout search-engine optimization.

Books are dead? Long live books.

Because Sam Sullivancan say hello in sevenlanguages

The former mayor will be remem-

bered for many things—somegood (his disability nonprofits,

representing Canada at the Turin

Olympics), some dubious (Project

Civil City, giving cash to addicts),and one that’s overlooked. Duringhis 2005 mayoral campaign, he

impressed voters with his abil-ity to converse in Cantonese and

give speeches in Punjabi. WithVancouver’s English-as-mother-

tongue ratio dropping fast, thiswas acknowledgment that public

officials needed to outgrow theirlanguage silos, and confirmation

that Vancouver had become a truly

cosmopolitan city. Sullivan’s latestventure, Greeting Fluency, invites

us to learn common phrases in thelanguages most spoken here: Can-

tonese, Punjabi, Tagalog, Kamusta.Kung paano kayo, kapitbahay? How

are you, neighbour?

Because we inhale

The question: Does Vancouver

really deserve its reputation asVansterdam, a city where marijuana

is widely enjoyed, to no discernibleill effect? The empirical evidence

is supportive. According to a 2007study, 16.8 percent of Canadians

age 15 to 64 used during the prioryear, tops among industrialized

nations. Meanwhile, StatsCanreports that over 50 percent of B.C.

folks have tried weed, the highest

ratio among provinces. And whynot? Like alcohol and cigarettes,

weed has some harmful effects; butit also provides health benefits for

some—which may explain why thepolice decline to enforce laws that

most people view as outdated and

costly. So there’s your answer. Butwait—what was the question?



C o u r t e s y V a n c o u v e r B i e n n a l e ( A - m a z e - i n g L a u g h t e r ) ; K

e v o r k D j a n s e z i a n / G e t t y I m a g e s ( r i o t c o p ) ; c o u r t e s

y D o u g l a s & M c I n t y r e ( T e r r y F o x ) ; J e f f V i n n i c k / N H

L I / G e t t y I m a g e s ( C a n u c k s )

Because public art hasfinally taken root here

After the debacle in 2008 that saw

us lose Denis Oppenheim’s fine

sculpture, Device to Root Out Evil

(an upside-down church by CoalHarbour), dozens of first-rate out-door works have been installed.

Martin Creed’s fluorescent textpiece, Everything Is Going to Be

Alright, is the crown atop BobRennie’s audacious Pender Street

gallery. Stan Douglas’s photo-muralRiot Act, which re-creates the

Gastown Riots in the atrium of the Woodward’s building, is a testa-

ment to our activist roots. Douglas

Coupland’s Digital Orca and theInges Idee’s 20-metre-high Drop are

must-see photo ops at the new con-vention centre, and Jaume Plensa’s

aluminum We, a five-metre-tall fig-ure crouching at Sunset Beach, has

turned into a mascot for picnic par-ties. At last we get it: our greatest

cultural venue is the out-of-doors.

Because we keep going,and going, and going…

Aren’t old folks supposed to parktheir walkers in front of TV sets and

slot machines? Dal Richards (93)still leads his big band; Gordon

Smith (92) paints as brilliantly asever; Olga Kotelko (91) holds all 17

world track-and-field records for

her age class; Cornelia Oberlander(86) remains a landscape architect

of renown; Jimmy Pattison (82)operates one of the largest private

companies in Canada. Hey, DavidSuzuki: great that you’ve launched

a new TV show, but we’ll be moreimpressed when you do it again 10

years from now, when you’re 85.

Because Mike Gillisis a genius

Stanley Cup or not, the Canucksare an excellent team and a rock-

solid NHL franchise. How did weget there? As an agent, Mike Gil-

lis cut eye-popping deals for hisplayers. As GM of the Canucks,

he’s negotiated stellar, long-termcontracts for owner Francesco

Aquilini (who was widely derided

for hiring him). Dozens of NHLersout-earn the Sedin twins ($6.1

million each), hundreds out-earnAlex Burrows ($2 million), and

almost all out-earn Yannik Hansen

($825,000). Astutely evaluatingand signing core players before

they blossom, Gillis left himself

room to add depth and versatility.And he’s instilled a culture thatencourages the players to thrive.

His smarts guarantee us a first-class team for years to come.

Because we know howto party (and, yes, riot)

Vancouver got high-fives during

the 2010 Winter Games—fullmarks to the VPD for turning a

blind eye to what otherwise might

have been classified as disorderly

conduct. It wasn’t ever thus. InGastown in 1971, when a smoke-into protest drug raids got heated, the

cops took to trying out their newlyissued batons. A year later, 2,500

Stones fans crashed Pacific Coli-seum, inciting a riot. Ditto in 2002,

when Guns ’n Roses cancelled theirshow. When the Canucks lost the

Stanley Cup final in 1994, 70,000mourners convened on Robson. It

took rubber bullets and tear gas to

remedy the situation. And in 1997,at the APEC summit, the students

of UBC learned that you can’t bringpacifism to a pepper-spray fight.

Who says it’s a good party when thecops show up?

Because we turn devasta-tion into inspiration

When Terry Fox began his lonely,

hobbled run in St. John’s, New-foundland, in April 1980, nobody

knew who he was. By the timehe reached Ontario, two months

later, he was the lead item on thenational news. Today, the Terry

Fox Run is a global phenomenonthat has raised more than $500

million for cancer research. RickHansen’s round-the-world wheel-

chair odyssey, Man in Motion, was

every bit as inspiring and laudable;he’s raised $250 million and made

life better for untold thousands of people who’ve suffered spinal inju-

ries. And let’s not forget Michael J.Fox, whose grace, intelligence, and

humour in the face of Parkinson’s

have brought new attention tofinding a cure for the disease.




C a n a d

i a n P r e s s / V i c t o r i a T i m e s - C o l o n i s t / J o h n M c K a y ( G

l e n C l a r k ) ; T i m e & L i f e P i c t u r e s / G e t t y I m a g e s ( H e

f n e r & C o n r a d ) ; B o b M a t h e s o n a n d H e n r i q u e z P a

r t n e r s A r c h i t e c t s ( W o o d w a r d ’ s )


Because a socialistpremier can becomea capitalist tycoon

B.C. politics—need we say more?

Yet beyond the infamous flakes,

rubes, drunks, and mediocrities,the vast majority of our politicianshave proven to be competent, prin-

cipled, and selfless public servantswho go on to impressive achieve-

ments once they leave office. Nevermind the ones we liked: the Mike

Harcourts, Carole Taylors, andRafe Mairs. Consider the one we

didn’t. After Glen Clark left the

premier’s office in 1999 in disgrace,he was hired by Jim Pattison.

Today, after a series of promotions,he’s not only a Pattison Group VP,

but Pattison’s presumed successor. Which says something about our

politicians—and about our cap-tains of industry, too.

Because we coinmemorable phrases

“Hey Todd: If you can leave yourMcJob for the evening, and kick

your cyberspace habit too, come

join us for dinner. We’re doingthe 100-mile diet thing—gotta

reduce that eco-footprint.” Utterthat sentence and English speakers

around the world will know exactlywhat you’re talking about. “McJob”

(along with “Microserf” and “Gen-eration X”, not to mention “City of

Glass”) was popularized by Doug-las Coupland, while cyberspace

was first envisioned by WilliamGibson. The 100-Mile Diet is a 2007

book by James MacKinnon and

Alisa Smith, while the ecologicalfootprint is a concept invented by

the UBC geographer William Rees.

Because the “W”stands for “we”

Former city councillor Jim Green,

the hat-wearing Southern gentle-man who’s championed the Wood-

ward’s housing project since itsinfancy, points out that his master-

planned housing baby has no equalon the planet. The 536 kitted-out

condos offset the 200 social-hous-ing units in a balancing act that

lured the city’s yuppies further east

than ever before. The mix of hous-ing brings folks from every walk of

life together on a single city block.The biggest surprise to come out

of this social experiment? Nothing

went wrong. The sidewalk did notsplit open to swallow Woodward’s,

and 6,000 people pass through its

courtyard every day. One blockdown, 10,000 to go.

Because Ken Honeyknew a Playmate whenhe saw one

Local photographer Ken Honey dida lot of scouting at Wreck Beach,

wearing exactly what he hopedhis subjects would—nothing but a

pair of shoes. The strategy worked:Honey ultimately found 13 Playboy

Playmates, including Canada’s first,Pamela Gordon, in 1962, and threeof the most famous: Kim Conrad,

who married Hugh Hefner; Doro-thy Stratten, who launched an act-

ing career before being murderedby her ex-husband; and Pamela

Anderson—whom Honey famouslydiscovered on the scoreboard at

a B.C. Lions game. Anderson hasproven that it’s possible to achieve

mainstream success while retain-ing links to the porn world. Honey

pulled off much the same trick

during the half-century he livedhere before his death this year at

86: when not shooting cheesecakenudes, he was one of the city’s lead-

ing wedding photographers.

Because we take anice picture

As millions of visitors have shown,our city looks good on postcards

and Flickr. Maybe that’s why we’reknown internationally for a stellar

roster of photographers, from FredHerzog to members of the so-called

Vancouver School of photoconcep-tual art: Jeff Wall, Stan Douglas,

Roy Arden, Ken Lum, Rodney

Graham, Ian Wallace. Wall, withrecent one-man shows at both Lon-

don’s Tate Modern and New York’sMOMA, is considered one of the

leading artists of his generation.One result: an impression among

gallery-goers around the worldthat we’re a brainy, bohemian kind

of place, like Berlin or Brooklyn,

but with mountains and totempoles on our postcards.



C a n a d

i a n P r e s s / D a r r e n C a l a b r e s e ( R o b F o r d ) ; G e t t y I m a g e s ( r e p o r t e r ) ; N i c L e h o u x a n d B i n g T h o m

A r c h i t e c t s ( S u n s e t c o m m u n i t y c e n t r e )

Because the city’sa smorgasbord

Your best friends are a Chinese-

Caucasian couple? Your son’s palin high school was Rwandan? You

spent an evening at a Catholicchurch hall when your niece’sbest friend threw a lavish Filipino

birthday party? You shop at a mall(Park Royal) owned by an Ismaili

Muslim family on land leased fromthe Squamish First Nation? The

city was settled by Natives, namedby the British in a region explored

by the Spaniards, and built up in itsearly years by a Jewish mayor, Chi-

nese entrepreneurs, Punjabi mill-workers, and Japanese fishermen. It

has the least segregated neighbour-

hoods in Canada and the highestproportion of interracial couples.

Sushi, bánh mì, and pho for all!

Because we still havereporters who report

The city’s newspaper of record has

largely followed the trend to replac-ing reporters with repeaters, but the

scribes who remain are given widelatitude. Sometimes that means

there’s no one to cover the fire/

flood/assassination attempt, but atother times it means remarkable

reporting—Daphne Bramham’scoverage of polygamy at Bountiful,

for example, or Larry Pynn’s inves-tigation of the floatplane industry.

Howe Street crusader David Bainesis the scourge of white-collar shy-

sters, and Kim Bolan has remark-able expertise on the gang world.

At a time when everybody andtheir yoga teacher has a blog, and

offhand commentary passes for

considered thought, these reportersuphold journalism’s good name.

Because our starchitectsdesign our rec centres

Montreal and Toronto lure inter-nationally renowned architects

to design their galleries, libraries,concert halls, and museums. Here,

our best and brightest—who workall over the world—grace the city

instead with community centres.Practically the only major public

buildings built here in the last 20

years, these mini-country clubsinclude Bing Thom’s flower-like


Sunset Community Centre onMain, Walter Francl’s swoop-

ing-roofed Trout Lake centre and

ice rink near Commercial, andGregory Henriquez’s submarine-

themed underground centre atCoal Harbour. Latest entrants in

this field of functional art: thehusband-and-wife Patkau team,

at work on the Marpole-Oakridge

centre (and in competition withHenriquez to design Dunbar’s newrec centre). Eat your heart out,

New York.

Because our mayoris not Rob Ford

Thank the stars Gregor Robertson

has little in common with the buf-foon now ruling Toronto. Yes, Rob-

ertson is earnest and surroundedby control freaks. Yes, he’s one of

those West Coast mayors—pro-

gressive, bike-ridin’, green-spou-tin’ types—elected in L.A., San

Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.Yes, he’s got a program to save the

world, one homeless shelter, bike

lane, and photovoltaic panel at atime—and, despite complaints

from motorists and developers,he’s sticking to it. As a bonus, he is,

as a visitor from Toronto recentlyput it, “hot like Clark Kent.” Don’t

love His Worship? Repeat after us:

“He’s not Rob Ford.”

Because you can’tget a Big Mac onGranville Island

Cement trucks, fresh produce, acutting-edge art school, hand-dyed

scarves—not the mix you’ll seeat any accountant-planned mall.

Granville Island is an only-in-

Vancouver special, a government-initiated plan (kudos to onetime

Liberal cabinet minister Ron Bas-ford) to create a festival market-

place on what was once a sandbar,re-using old industrial buildings

and banning chain stores. Locals

and tourists alike pour in to thecity’s one McDonald’s-free zone

to buy handmade brooms or cutflowers, silver earrings or the

latest cookbook, attend danceperformances, have a beer, let their

toddlers feed the seagulls, listen to

buskers, pick up seafood just off the boat, and then head home, per-haps on one of the toy-like ferries

that chug across False Creek. VM

For

100 more reasons to love

Vancouver,visit

Vanmag.com

"125 Reasons to Love Vancouver" - Vancouver Magazine, June 2011 - by Ayden Fabien Férdeline

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