Tag Archives: Tourism

A Bridge Too Wobbly

Leave a Reply

Friday 19 August 2022 – Today’s activity combined two recognised Tourist Must-Do attractions in the Vancouver area – Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Bridge – pretty much an all-day outing. Because we were being taken round these attractions by coach there was the usual milling about worrying about whether we would be picked up OK. Jane got chatting to another couple (from Bracknell, as it happens) who were also in possession of a piece of paper and a worried expression and we agreed that they were unlikely to miss all four of us. In the end, it was all smooth, although not particularly swift; we were led to our coach, we boarded and then… waited until a couple of last-minute stragglers eventually turned up. Whilst we were waiting, it became clear that, while driver Jimmy was a considerably more experienced tour driver than Theresa had been on our Photo Safari in Ketchikan, he was even more garrulous. He kept up an entertaining but ceaseless stream of tourist information, philosophical homilies and moaning about the local government for the whole time he was on board the bus. He definitely knew what he was doing and only one passenger was heard to complain that he spoke too fast, but she was French, so what do I care?

Grouse Mountain is a popular local resort which offers skiing during the winter and just the general benefits of altitude (fresh air and a decent view, ideally) the rest of the year. It all starts with a ride up in a 100-person cable car. I noticed that its maximum load was 98 passengers plus an operator, and a maximum weight of 16230 pounds. This means that the designers expected an average weight of 164 pounds per passenger. I don’t wish to be rude, but I just hope there’s some contingency built into the cable strength given the increase in the overall population’s weight since 1974 when this cable car was opened.

The journey to the top raises you 2800 feet in 6 minutes, and is exactly like cable car rides familiar to anyone who has ever been skiing except that this one has a bit of a tourist commentary from the operator (delivered, as far as I could tell in this instance, in a Yorkshire accent). At the top, you reach “Peak Chalet”, a destination which I’m sure would get Courchevel reaching for its lawyers. Peak Chalet offers a couple of viewing decks and many retail opportunities. It also has an atrium with some great carved pillars.

We had coffee there, admiring what we could see of the view, which, in traditional Walker, erm, tradition “would have been better if it were clearer”.

The area reached by the cable car offers many entertainment possibilities, such as a lumberjack show

ziplining, a raptor demonstration and a grizzly bear enclosure (we didn’t get to see the two resident bears who had wisely disappeared into their forested fastness; but the bear enclosure gave us some useful scale info).

There is a loop trail which has several sculptures hacked out of tree stumps beside it.

The eagle, particularly is a fabulous piece of work. One can take another chair lift to go even higher, so we did. My God, it’s slow. (I bet they run it faster in ski season.) It rises just 400 feet in 15 minutes, over a distance of about 2000 feet. I bet you could walk it faster, but we weren’t in a hurry, so we took it.

At the top you get a view of the middle plateau over what I assume would be a piste were it covered in snow.

They helpfully indicate viewpoints with rather fetching coloured seats.

There’s a wind turbine up there

with a fetchingly illustrated base.

We rode down chairlift and cable car to get back to our coach and Jimmy took us to our next stop, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. It’s too easy to assume that this bridge is the big blue suspension bridge you see extending north from Stanley Park. That would be wrong – that one is the Lions Gate Bridge. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a pedestrian-only (you’ll see why soon) bridge across the Capilano River, which feeds Capilano Lake, which I would love to say is formed into a hydro reservoir by Capilano Dam, but it’s not, dammit – it’s Cleveland Dam. The Capilano name refers to Joe Capilano, a leader of the Squamish from 1895-1910, who fought for the recognition of native rights and lifestyle. The bridge is in a park which has a whole host of tourist delights. To get to most of them, you have to cross the suspension bridge

which is a bit wobbly.

It’s great fun to walk over, and it feels a bit like trying to stay upright walking along the length of a rowing boat in a reasonably severe cross swell, say, about force 6. It was also really quite crowded when we arrived (less so later) which added to the fun.

Once on the other side, there is a very well-engineered forest boardwalk

leading past a raptor demonstration area


(that owl has got the eye roll down to a fine art, I think…

and the Harris Hawk looks pretty unimpressed).

There’s also a high tree walk.


(Actually, I think it’s more extreme physics and engineering, but I’ll cut them some (catenary) slack on that.)

There’s great emphasis on implementing all of this as sympathetically as possible with the environment – traditional building methods, no damage to trees, no major machinery, just pulleys and ropes. It maybe somewhat confected but it’s a seriously impressive setup, and great fun to walk around.

There is one more adventure to be had, which is the cliff walk, to get to which you have to cross the main suspension bridge once more. It’s not as wobbly as the others, and is very nicely bolted on to the cliff. Just as well, really.

All in all, the Park is an entertaining place to spend a couple of hours.

The final call of the day was to the Capilano River Hatchery, which is dedicated to salmon breeding. From a single salmon pair’s clutch of fertilized eggs (which may number as much as 1,000) where six young salmon would survive in the wild, the work of the hatchery means that instead some 300 will make it through the full breeding cycle, which, as well as keeping fishermen and bears happy, has significant environmental benefits.

Beyond educational information boards (which now mean I know the difference between fry, alevins and smolts) there wasn’t much to see at the hatchery, but they did have a salmon ladder the depths of which are visible through windows. Looking at the lower levels, one could see the odd occasional salmon making its way up (normally) the ladder. Strikingly, there was something of a traffic jam at the top

and outside in the river you could make out large numbers of salmon who, one hopes, would soon find the entrance to the ladder so they could get upstream and have a jolly good spawn.

This was the last stop on our tour, and all that remained was to fight our way back through the traffic to our hotel, which gave Jimmy a whole lot more time to dispense his folksy wisdom and undoubted expertise about the city.

Tomorrow we leave Vancouver for some ten days, whilst we travel on to Vancouver Island and beyond. Victoria awaits us tomorrow (coach and ferry permitting) and then we move on to even more excitement before coming back here for a few more days. Please keep your eyes on this site and you can find out what we get up to.

We discouver Vancouver

1 Reply

Thursday 18 August 2022 – The disembarkation from Silver Muse was a smooth and well-organised process. We’d expected to be able to disembark at 0945, but actually it was just before 9am when we emerged blinking into the Vancouver cruise terminal.  We picked up our bags and (probably jay-)walked across the road to the Fairmont Waterfront where, as expected, our room wasn’t ready for us yet.  However, quelle surprise!, the application of a few dollars to upgrade got us immediately installed in a nice double aspect room, with one window looking out at the port and the other at Coal Harbour.  The receptionist, François, gave us a lunchtime recommendation, a place called Cardero’s, and generally was very nice, as he should be, having scored a few extra dollars for the hotel.

After a certain amount of sitting around and drawing breath (me) and organising confirmations for our entertainments tomorrow and the day after (Jane), we got the hotel to book us a late lunch at this Cardero’s place and then did what we always do under these circumstances, which is to get out and blunder around the local streets to get a feel for the place.  And by and large, Vancouver has a nice vibe to it.

The first objective was Gastown, the original settlement that became the core of the city of Vancouver, named for “Gassy” Jack Deighton, a Yorkshire seaman, steamboat captain and barkeep who arrived in 1867 to open the area’s first saloon. He was famous for his habit of talking at length (or “gassing”), and the area was designated a national historic site in 2009.  It  is a mix of “hip” contemporary fashion and interior furnishing boutiques, tourist-oriented businesses (generally restricted to Water Street), restaurants, nightclubs and newly upscale housing.

It has statues, like this Angel of Victory, dedicated to the men who perished in the two world wars,

the justly famous Gastown Steam Clock,

quirky shops,

(who knew there were so many musical genres?) and its own Flatiron building

which seems to me to have a multiple snarl on its “face”.  There is also poverty –

this is a public washroom; a couple of police officers we met later suggested that we should have avoided the area, actually. We also saw some homeless people and others who were clearly not well off.  But overall, like all of the areas of Vancouver we wandered through, it’s a pleasant area.

Vancouver has a significant Chinatown, with an impressive gateway

but a useless abacus, as you couldn’t move the counters; and it has real, electric trolleybuses of the sort which were phased out in the UK just before people realised what a good idea they are.

There’s no shortage of interesting buildings

and other notable sights, such as this mosaic referring to the great Vancouver fire of 1886.

We saw one unusual window cleaning exercise in progress

and visited a cathedral (Holy Rosary, Batman!)

and, as we left it, we caught sight of the Lookout Tower

which gave us an idea.

It costs a bit to go up, but the view is great.  For example, you can see from on high how cramped that cathedral is.

Having wandered around the Lookout level, we thought we’d try it on and went up to the revolving restaurant on the level above, to see if they would give us coffee. We were in luck! They were feeling charitable and so we sat whilst we watched Vancouver wag by for an hour.  This is how it looks if you compress that to 45 seconds.

It was then getting towards the time we’d decided on for lunch so we walked along the waterfront to Cardero’s.  It’s a nice walk along the waterfront, past an interesting water feature/fountain thingy,

an art installation called The Drop,

the flight harbour

(the novelty of seeing float planes taking off and landing wears off pretty swiftly here) and the marina at Coal Harbour

which is where you can find Cardero’s.

We were initially served by Ricky Gervais, who is moonlighting over here and has pretty much perfected his Canadian accent.

He is operating under the alias “Travis” but we saw through him.

Seriously, he did a splendid job of making us feel welcome and then handed us over to a colleague, Katy, who also did a fine job.  The food was excellent, as was the general ambience.  I really commend the place to anyone seeking lunch or dinner.  (Our table was booked at 4pm, which is a late lunch for us; by local standards, though, it counts as an early dinner.)

We pottered (tottered?) back to the hotel afterwards, pretty much retracing our steps. The route has a walkway and segregated cycle track, which is a great idea.  We saw some people on one-wheel electric scooters of some kind,

a bush that had grown into a Thing that might have come from the Muppets stable,

and a bizarre shack on stilts.

Who knows what the story is behind that?  It may be an art installation, which would certainly fit in with the generally gentrified vibe of Coal Harbour.

We didn’t exactly retrace our footsteps, because Jane wanted to see the Olympic Cauldron by the convention centre.

It became clear that Something Was Going On there as everyone was dressed in white.

and it was obviously popular as there was a queue,

We discovered later that this was a Diner En Blanc event, the first one staged in Vancouver since 2019.  At the last minute, a secret location is revealed to thousands of people who have all been patiently waiting to learn where “Dîner en Blanc” will take place. Thousands of people then meet for a mass “chic picnic” in a public space. It had a lovely atmosphere.

We got back to the hotel where the delight of finding a kettle in the room was somewhat countered by the horror of discovering that there were no cups.  Jane whistled up room service and asked for large mugs, and milk, so we could have tea, and the nice chap who was helping us brought us some absolutely huge cups – probably normally used for soup, but more than adequate for the job of getting some Twinings Earl Grey into us in suitable quantity,

And that was it for our amble round Vancouver.  Tomorrow will be more structured, as we’ll be carted around in a coach so that we can Do Tourist Things.  Exactly what, you’ll have to come back and find out.

Catch As Ketchikan

6 Replies

Wednesday 17 August 2022 – Long read alert! Grab yourself a cuppa or a glass of something cold and settle in for a spell.

This is the last post about the cruise, for today we are At Sea, having departed our final port of call, Ketchikan, yesterday. From the decks of the ship, it looked an attractive place.

and we got prime parking position bang in the middle of the downtown waterfront. It was also clear what a major role tourism plays in its economy.

As ever it was an action-packed day, but for once our luck with the weather deserted us.

Ketchikan measures its annual rainfall in feet, and gets somewhere between 12 and 15 feet of rain every year.  If you check out this average climate page, you’ll see that “A lot of rain (rainy season) falls in the months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.” Yesterday proudly performed in line with the averages.

No matter. We disembarked promptly for our excursion, a “photo safari”.  Whilst we awaited the start, we took a couple of photos from the quayside

The statue above is called “The Rock” and depicts the various influences in the development of the place – Tlingit, loggers, fishermen and airmen.

Our tour was led by Theresa

who was very friendly and helpful, but garrulous to the point of gabbling. It was only her second or third time of leading the tour, I think, and maybe she was a little nervous.  However, she had a few tips of particular value to iPhone users, but some of which could also apply to Android phones, and she took us to some nearby locations we might not have found by ourselves and some more remote ones, too.

We started at Ketchikan Creek, which runs through the downtown area.

You can see the downtown/old town buildings in the photo above, and we headed over to them. They surround a street sensibly called Creek Street and are very charming, even in the pissing rain.

I caught a glimpse of a raven slyly feeding on some scraps it had found.

Ketchikan styles itself “The Salmon Capital of Alaska”, and, since the salmon were running, we could see why.  On the positive side, one can see a salmon ladder beside the creek, where the salmon make their way upstream to spawn

but one can also see (and often smell) the carcases of those that didn’t make it – the creek waters are littered with dead salmon.

There’s a salmon sculpture by the banks of the creek, carved by Terry Pyles

and named in honour of the native carver Jones Yeltatzie, who had originally put a painted wooden salmon there.  Salmon dominate as a wildlife specimen, but there are plenty of other animals in the area, and these are celebrated in an artwork on the side of a Creek Street building.

Theresa took us to another area by the creek, where we could also see salmon working their way upstream; nearby houses were attractively coloured but a little run down.

After that we took to the road to cover a variety of different locations: a viewpoint which shows that Ketchikan has its working side as well as the quaint downtown area;

the library, which normally has a great view but today was struck by the Walker curse – “would have been better if it were clearer!” –

 

but which offered a nice close-up;

the harbour, which has a very extensive marina;

a floatplane mooring;

Ward Cove;

and, finally, Totem Bight State Historical park, also called Potlatch Park.  This features a replica native village, laid out as closely as possible to the traditional manner and constructed using traditional materials and hand-made tools. Construction started in the 1930s.

and, somewhat bizarrely to my mind, a small vintage motor museum.

The place had the most amazing gift shop. You really don’t expect to find life-size cars in a gift shop, do you?

The gift shop also featured a museum of older artifacts (e.g. guns)

and Jane found an exquisite advert.

Our time ran out at this point and we had to hasten back for the second adventure of the day, something which was surely to be the cultural zenith of the entire cruise – the Great Lumberjack Show!

We blundered about trying to find it at first, but succeeded in the end. There was a Lumberjill outside it as we went in

to seating by an arena which was clearly set out as a competition between USA and Canada.

The host was “Lasagne Joe”, who asserted that he was a chef,

and who was the MC for a variety of different “Timber Sports” set pieces with each team of two guys trying to beat the other.

It was as staged as WWF wrestling, but massively entertaining; and the athleticism, strength and skill of the guys was very impressive indeed.  Of course, it ended in a draw which meant that a tie breaker in the shape of log rolling was needed to settle the score.

The whole thing was ridiculously good fun and the athletes posed for photos afterwards as we filed out.

It was then not long before our ship departed, so we spent a few minutes looking round at the downtown, which has its fair share of attractive buildings and quirky bits

Jane pointed out, as we walked along, that up ahead wasn’t an apartment block we had to skirt, it was our ship!

It being my birthday, we treated ourselves to champagne and nibbles – the treat was the nibbles, as the champagne was available at no extra charge – and then went to The Grill for a hot rock meal – massive prawns for Jane and steak and sweet potato fries for me.  It was a nice end to a very entertaining day.

This morning, we awoke to very different weather.

and the sun combined with a patch of fog as we had a (latish) breakfast to give us the sight of our very first fogbow!

The rest of the day passed in relative indolence, interrupted only by starting the process of getting packed up ready to be kicked off the boat tomorrow morning. Oh, and lunch, which we took at the pizza place at the far end of the deck as shown below.

I must say that it was great to see the sun.  Ketchikan excepted, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky with the weather in Alaska, but in most cases “lucky” translates as “not raining”.

As we passed Vancouver Island (and, indeed, the place we’ll be in next week in an attempt to see grizzly bears in the wild), we got some nice views from our cabin.

And thus ends a week of sybaritic self-indulgence, Silversea style.  I’m very impressed with the Silversea offering. The food has been excellent, the service has been pretty much faultless, the excursions have been interesting and varied, and our butler, Francis, has done a really superb job of looking after us all week. I would expect us to be future customers of Silversea, but we’ll probably aim for their expedition-style boats, which are rather smaller and we think that’s probably more our style.  It’ll be 2024 before we find out and there’s a lot of, erm, water to flow under the bridge in the meantime,

We still have the practicalities of getting off the ship in good order, a process which is at once both convenient and a nuisance.  Silversea demand that we have our suitcases packed and ready by 2300 today, and we must leave the cabin by 0800 tomorrow.  This relieves us of faffing about with last-minute packing, but also means that we don’t have access to things that we might normally use overnight. I’m not sure whether this is a good arrangement or not;  I guess we’ll find out in due course.

If you’ve read this far, then congratulations on your patience and staying power and thank you for sticking with it.  We reach Vancouver early tomorrow and so will have the day to wander about gawping at things and moaning about the heat (29°C, with the sun threatening to split the paving stones).  So do come back and see how we got on, won’t you?