Final stop: springtime in Vancouver

Final stop. 

End of the road. 

We hightailed it, running late as ever, from the liberal hippy hotbed of Fremont on the north side of Lake Union, past the Space Needle and on through the city to the shabby fringes of Chinatown where the Boltbus awaited. We’d hoped to journey up via the spectacular San Juan Islands but, rarely, pragmatism had won out and with barely a week left before (gulp) our ticket out – and now back on public transport to boot – heading straight for Vancouver seemed like the best plan. So with the final smuggling of Philadelphia, garlic and chilli flakes across international borders (‘How long in Canada?’ ‘ Just a week’ ‘Why only Vancouver? Canada’s a big country.’ ‘Yessss… Just a week’) we trundled into our final destination.

Vancouver is famed as one of the lifestyle capitals of the world. The kind of city that regularly tops international indices for quality of life and general all-round happiness. Somewhere the infinite possibilities, all-encompassing service culture and scales of choice of North America meets effective health and social care, soft power foreign policy, a melting pot that actually works, effective gun control and a grip on irony. And maple syrup. Somewhere you face sea on one side and mountains on the other. And, perhaps most importantly of all, a place where the incredible sushi is both ridonculous in proportions and low in price.

Funny thing, last stops. We were pretty exhausted in some ways. People kept asking if we were ready to come back and in some ways the answer was yes. Ready to stay somewhere for longer than a week, ready to see friends and family, ready to have more than one pair of trousers. But at the same time, and as it always does on these type of trips, the departure date had kind up snuck up on us and it was bewildering to imagine ourselves back in London in barely a week.

So Vancouver was the perfect landing/departure point, offering the right hybrid of relaxing city and harbour-side wandering - as we mused and gabbled on a random (and slightly anxious) mix of travel and homecoming themes - and End-of-Days nights out. Of practical, grown-up ‘getting our lives together’ logistics alongside a last-ditch glut of cycling, eating and gallery options.

In this city, the views are spectacular and unassuming. The green Lion’s Gate bridge between Stanley Park and the city’s Northern shore seemed, scandalously as it may sound, more than a match for the Golden Gate bridge; while cycling around the Seawall of the park itself on hired bikes is an idyllic and serene afternoon. More than a little 'first date' but in an utterly charming way. In any direction you're confronted with mountains and, in these warm, late March days at least, the ocean was surprisingly calm and sheltered compared to the wild US Pacific North-west coast we'd left just a few hours south in Seattle.

The sushi, the pho, the dim sum, the full brunch at the ram-packed Templeton diner… great meals come cheap and the riches are worn lightly. Our first dinner was an early Japanese at SamuraiSushi on Davie Street – a personal recommendation which more than delivered on amazing quality and gigantamous portions at tiny prices – and throughout the week the Asian eats in particular proved the city’s hype true.

With the end in sight, we felt faintly haunted by the conflict between packing in as much culture and activity as possible – and the fatigue of 7 months travel catching up. However, we did make time for The Vancouver Art Gallery (tip: Tuesday evenings after 5pm by donation) - which was hosting an engrossing Art Spiegelman exhibition with reams of early Maus drafts as well as a fascinating pick of his earliest comics. Wandering through the Chinese gardens over in what passed here for the ‘dodgy’ part of town (God bless their beautiful, stable Canadian souls) was another highlight, providing lovely contrasting views with the city highrises beyond.

My birthday fell midweek and the night before we’d perked ourselves out of an impending low by cracking into some decadent sparkling Shiraz we’d picked up from a friend of a friend at the Wattle Creek tasting room in San Franscisco, over dinner prepared in the hostel. On the day itself we took a bus down to the Museum of Anthropology in the UBC grounds, a stand-out collection of First Nations art, carvings and bequeathed and rescued house posts housed in glass-fronted halls looking out towards gardens and the sea beyond. The wider permanent collection is also archived in an open-access space for visitors to research and explore all year round. As throughout the week, we mused on the modest capacity of Canadians to do so much so well, with friendliness, transparency and minimal fuss. 

It was hard, more specifically, not to compare favourably with the US the way their indigenous history, and historiography, is interpreted and integrated into the broader national story. A surface-level, outsider’s impression, which presumes as wretched a history of violence and appropriation (and I’m sure as many on-going blind spots and hypocrisies), it's true. But the respectful and energetic way the MOA has sought to preserve and archive the material culture of the region’s peoples and has grappled with questions of cultural ownership, voice and power was palpable to us nonetheless. A memorable trip I’d recommend.

We ate sushi in Kitsilano and walked along the pebble beach facing downtown before returning to change for the evening’s festivities. Where fun was had. 

The night began with classy cocktails at Gastown’s Pourhouse and ended in a whirl of beers, former Edmonton Oilers hardman Dave Samenko and dancing at the Roxy before 3am poutine (chips, cheese, gravy) in our rowdy neighbourhood on Granville street. Pourhouse in particular was a real winner, a fantastic bar we’d be propping up on a regular basis was it in London. Except that it couldn’t possibly be. Being the kind of grown-up, classy bar-restaurant that in any US or UK city would be self-consciously Stylish and more than a little pretentious – but found in Vancouver was chatty, warm and welcoming, altogether a little bit Cheers. 

After kicking off with Prosecco and Negroni, we promised the French-Canadian barman we’d be back. Which, after a brilliantly appropriate cheese and wine pairing dinner at the Salt Tasting Room, and another drink at the Alibi Room, we were - and a few rounds of martinis and whisky-cocktails passed all too easily. 

Eventually prising ourselves out a bit after midnight, when our affable companions in the Canadian construction industry (and talk of their first-hand experience of the giddy delights of Stowmarket and Ipswich) had become sufficiently slurred and Wayne Gretsky’s former ‘body-guard’ Dave with the psychotic eyes was well into his 6^th hour on the bar stool, we walked back to Granville street. Little night-cap, cheeky beer...? we asked ourselves innocently, passing the door of the Roxy (‘…always good fun’, my hipster hairdresser with the handle-bar moustache had advised with a wry grin the day before). Dancing to live renditions of ‘Wannabe’, making friends with bikers from Morpeth and working ladies who liked my jacket, more encounters with Dave from the bar (the route to our former drinking buddy now barred by numerous self-appointed minders) late night chips... and done. 

33 years and counting, who'd have thought it? To paraphrase William Saroyan, I always believed an exception would be made in my case.

And in some ways, that wrapped things up. We had a few days left, which felt a little besides the point this close to the edge. Our last day took us out by bus to the lovely Lighthouse Park in northern Vancouver where we took one last hike through the woods before perching on the rocks musing on what was to come and watching the boats; toying with running away to sea. 

Back in town we returned to hipster Gastown for a final dinner and cocktails at the Revel Room and then the Diamond, looking down on Vancouver’s contented, secure citizens setting about their nightlife. A town where you really do get the best of city living - its energy and pace, its variety and its colour - seemingly without the scale of the sediment that gathers elsewhere. The seediness; the pretentiousness; the dirt; the spectre everywhere of unquantifiable and unjustifiable inequalities; the sadness, the hardest edge. Though I suppose for many it is just these things that give cities their ironic pull; their pathos. Perhaps without them a restlessness would descend in a world so built for contentment. 

A last glass of wine topped off a pretty perfect evening but one tinged with mournfulness, in the way of endings. When there’s somehow little left to say. When you’re kind of ready for the next instalment, but not quite ready to leave the last one. And it’s hard to know how to finish this tale.

In fact, perhaps we will avoid any nature of Summing Up, What We Learned or The End. Instead may follow a final couple of Lists, for we are nothing if not List-Makers and Accumulators of Assorted Trivia. And because we don’t travel to find ourselves but to lose ourselves; not to pretend we move forward but because life is often best lived sideways.

And so it goes on. Until the next time, when the urge again becomes too great to resist and a couple of jealously grabbed weeks here and there will just not do. An Itinerant - signing off.