Welcome to In The Village on False Creek, a unique project inspired by Live@YVR and 365 Days of Dining. I’ve moved my family into this community with my mission being to showcase the myriad of things that make it awesome by bringing you a weekly scoop!

Every 15 minutes from 9:25AM to 6:25PM a cute little ferry departs from The Village Dock (shown below) which is just steps outside of the Creekside Community Centre. False Creek Ferries operates this service for commuters and tourists alike, and you can find more info about it HERE. I’ll be taking you on an adventure to Granville Island on one of these ferries with a couple of cute kids soon but today I wanted to talk a little bit about what you see circled here.

The dock is owned by the City and was built mostly for False Creek Ferries’ service that connects Science World and The Village with Yaletown, Granville Island, Vanier Park and the West End. It also has four cleats on the South side of it dedicated to dinghys like the ones you see pictured below. If you’ve got a large boat anchored out in the Creek or moored in a nearby marina you can paddle your dinghy in, tie up to one of these cleats and enjoy The Village as well as Science World.

If you don’t have a large boat with a dinghy then maybe a canoe or a kayak is more your speed? Maybe you’ve got one that you launch from somewhere (anywhere) along False Creek and you want to come down, tie up and check out our community for a couple hours? This is me encouraging you to do so, in fact I’m inviting you to. I called the City and I also talked to the folks at False Creek Ferries and everybody has told me that it’s cool if you park anything without a motor at our dock. I think the one on the right in this photo might actually be a dragon boat spotter, and it was parked there with a motor for a good while, but I’m not sure how legal that was. To be safe: my advice is to park there with your un-motorized vessel!

When you come here, say hello to some of the dragon boat paddlers as they share the water with you and they share the community centre and some of the public space with us. I shot this photo of a bunch of them warming up outside the Dragon Zone, which is essentially a locker room and a meeting place where dragon boat teams connect before and after they get out on the water. The office for Dragon Boat BC and Creekside Kayaks is inside Creekside Community Centre, nestled in that Dragon Zone, and of course I’ll be bringing you a more detailed story or two about them in the weeks to come as well.

Since moving into The Village four weeks ago I’ve been almost overwhelmed with all of the fantastic stuff happening here. This past weekend alone there was Vancouver Craft Beer Week (which Christine has been covering and which took over the Salt Building on Saturday and Sunday), there was Portobello West in the community centre, there were at least 50 tents set up for what I can only assume were dragon boat prelim races before the big mid-June shindig, the Vancouver Orpheus Male Voice Choir randomly showed up and sung “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor” (I’m not kidding!), the Science Fair 5K Run kicked off with their event under the big sparrow sculptures in the square, and to top it all of a blue heron was lurking in the pond at Hinge Park for the better part of Sunday. Not bad, Village. Not bad.

Learn more at TheVillageOnFalseCreek.com and stay tuned each week as I expose unique elements of our new community.