Author Archive

Last week I told you about how we DONATED a Canon G11 to a group of 6th and 7th graders at Queen Alexandra Elementary so that they could add some more personal touches to their blog, The Wednesday Thursday Crew.

Well I’ve obviously got them bookmarked (don’t you?) and as I was doing my daily tour of the blogs that I follow I was so stoked to see this stop motion animation that they made!

How excited was I when our guidebooks (that double as tickets!) for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Heritage House Tour 2012 arrived? Very! I (perhaps a bit too) feverishly made my way through this 24 page booklet that offers extensive insight into the 10 heritage homes who will be opening their doors to you on June 3rd, and then set my sights accordingly.

The deal is that ten privately-owned heritage buildings will literally open their doors for one day to people who take themselves on a self-guided tour with the “ticket” (booklet) that costs $40 and serves as a fundraising initiative for the Heritage Foundation.

My favourite on the list of buildings to hit up is Le Marche St George. My family picks up an organic box here every week but for obvious reasons we’ve never been beyond the storefront and into the homes that are attached to this corner grocery store located on St George Street in East Van. The booklet tells me that there’s a ground level home in the back as well as two apartments above that will also have theirs doors open to visitors. Five paragraphs outline the history of the building and the work the current owners have put into restoring it to near-original condition.

Photos: Martin Knowles Photo/Media www.mkphotomedia.com

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Welcome to In The Village on False Creek, a unique project inspired by Live@YVR and 365 Days of Dining. Over the coming months it’s my mission to draw from the myriad of things that make this new community awesome in order to bring you a weekly scoop.

Last week I brought you a fluffy DUCKLING RESCUE, this week I’m getting a little more serious. I was able to sit down with Vancouver’s former Chief Planner, Brent Toderian, for an upcoming 50 Coffees piece I’m doing and I doubled up my time with him in order to pick his brain about my new neighbourhood. He had a hand in steering the development in the time leading up to the Olympics and it was cool to get some insights from him on the neighbourhood.

Brent shot and tweeted this photo right after we had coffee at Terra Breads in the village, as “Proof that #OlympicVillage cafe [is a] hub for dogs, bikes & baby-strollers!”

I’ve joked lately about how everyone in Vancouver sees themselves as a city planner: regardless of our education or background we all think we know what’s best for the future of our neighbourhoods and everyone is voicing their opinions loud and proud. And while I joke about it it’s entirely fair for every single resident to voice their views on what’s best for their Vancouver. That’s democracy, of course, and the rise of social media has made it easy for all of us to be able to share our thoughts. But it was really cool to sit down with a bonafide City Planner, the one who had in fact helped plan the very neighbourhood that I live in, and get his thoughts on why I love living there.

It was all by design, of course. And though you wouldn’t know it by following the local media, in Brent’s circles (international city planners, urbanists and the like) The Village on False Creek is often praised as one of the 3 best new midrise developments in the world. It’s frequently referenced not only as just a balanced community, but a remarkable one, and years later it still wins monthly international awards for its design and is viewed globally as a gamechanger. All of the small pieces that I’m bringing you every week through this series make up a larger, totally awesome puzzle. This new neighbourhood is the best one I’ve ever lived in, and if you ask most of my neighbours they’ll tell you the same. Heck, I’ll ask them and bring you their stories over the coming months!

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

I’ve been thinking a lot of about the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts lately. Just yesterday as I was walking under them to get to our office in Chinatown I ran into Vancouver-based professional skateboarder, Rick McCrank, standing in their shadow in the Skate Plaza. We had a discussion about what might happen to the Plaza should they come down, landing on the likely outcome for this particular space being – how can I say this – not the best one for Rick and his interests. The skatepark would likely end up being disassembled along with the viaduct as the property would all of a sudden go from being an easy one for the City to loan, as its current value is quite low, to a piece of land that would have many vying over it. A huge opportunity lies in creating more than shady, fenced in piles of dirt (what many of the spaces under the viaducts – aside from the Plaza – contain right now) and it’s sparked an interesting conversation from the City of Vancouver who are openly engaging all of the stakeholders in the city on the issue.

Professional skateboarder, Rick McCrank, often works under Vancouver’s viaducts

Back in the late 1960′s the viaducts were constructed because a freeway was supposed to meet them on the other side of Downtown but the residents of Strathcona and Chinatown rose up and opposed that paved thoroughfare that would have made our city look a LOT different some 40 years later, and it was obviously never built. Recently the City of Vancouver held a challenge inviting people to submit their concepts in 3 different categories: 1. A way to connect the core of the city if the viaducts weren’t there 2. Changing the existing viaducts into something, anything and 3. The Wildcard for random ideas. There were over 80 ideas, from well thought out plans complete with renderings all the way to basic concepts involving My Little Pony. All of them were interesting. Click the image below to visit the site where they’re presently being showcased.

Personally, I’d be happy to see them go and have some brighter space North of False Creek, perhaps more housing, green space and an urban trout pond (I should have submitted an entry to the challenge!). When I sat down for coffee with former City of Vancouver Chief Planner Brent Toderian last week I asked what he thought and his reply was “Take ‘em down”. City Councillor Geoff Meggs has been leading the charge on this conversation and I haven’t talked to him about it directly but judging from all of the POSTS on his blog that concern the subject I’m fairly certain he’s in favour of “total removal” as well. You can meet with him tomorrow at an SFU City Conversation event called Viaducts or Via-don’ts: The future of upper False Creek. Also speaking will be Urban Designer and Crosstown resident Frank Ducote, and Shirley Chan, whose family led the 1960s fight to stop the freeway I mentioned earlier in this piece. After they speak you’re invited to ask questions as well as share your opinions and ideas.

Event details:
When: Thursday, May 17, 2012
Time: 12:30-1:30 pm
Location: SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1425
LINK TO INFORMATION

Another instalment of the new video series we’ve partnered with launched today! Produced by Fire and Light Media Group, “Meet Your Urban Farmer” is a series that takes an in-depth look at different urban farmers in greater Vancouver, bringing you a little bit closer to the food you eat!

Meet Your Urban Farmer: Chris Thoreau of My Urban Farm

Meet Chris Thoreau of My Urban Farm in this second short film in our Meet your Urban Farmer series. (The extended version of the interview can be found HERE).

Chris is a creator, papa, urban grower of sunflower, pea, and buckwheat shoots which are then cut and pedaled to you within hours of harvest, bike-powered. Chris likes soil, compost, and microgreens. From 2001 to 2006 Chris operated Influence Organics – a small, certified organic farm, on Vancouver Island. “Too much work”, he thought, “I’m going back to school”. He now holds a BSc. in Agroecology from UBC where his studies focused on soils, urban farming, and plant breeding. Chris still works too much, but that’s ok.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to meet the wonderful array of passionate individuals behind the urban farming movement, and the wonderful food they grow for the community, stay tuned as we meet other urban farmers in the Vancouver Metro area. This will be an opportunity you won’t want to miss.

Support your local urban farmers (and local rural farmers of course), and know where your food comes from.

This morning I had the great pleasure of walking out my door in The Village on False Creek and walking a block to the Creekside Community Centre where, previously unbeknownst to me (and you, I imagine) the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific houses their Vancouver Campus. The CSCP is a partner of the Own The Podium initiative and essentially what they do is provide sport performance programs to help athletes and coaches win medals for Canada. Today they brought in 3 of Canada’s athletes who will be participating in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as one of the coaches to talk to the media about their training, their hopes and to briefly give their personal stories about how they got to where they are.

Pictured above from left to right are Ryan Cochrane (Bronze medalist winner in the 2008 Games for 1500m Freestyle Swimming), his multi-award-winning coach Randy Bennett, Martha McCabe (Bronze medalist in the 2011 Shanghai World Championships for 200m Breaststroke) and Bo Hedges (Silver medalist in the 2008 Paralympic Games for Wheelchair Basketball). After they spoke it was announced that the CSCP launched a new campaign called WE CAN which you can follow the #WeCan hashtag on Twitter or HERE on their web site.

But what you’re dying to know is what were these athletes wearing on their feet, right? What kind of footwear are Canada’s Olympians wearing to press conferences 73 days before the London 2012 Summer Olympics kick off? Well, coach Randy (feet left) is wearing some sort of Asics crosstrainers. Ryan Cochrane (feet right) is wearing a casual pair of Tom’s.

Martha (feet left) is wearing checkered Vans slipons and my favourite pair of shoes I saw up there were Bo’s (feet right) Adidas. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Did you attend Queen Alexandra Elementary in 1986? Are you pictured in this graduation photo below holding an (AMAZING!) Vancouver 100th anniversary flags?

OR, do you know anyone in this photo? They’d be 30-something now, and I bet they’d love to see this. It’s hanging up in Queen Alexandra and I am at a loss for words to describe how much I love it.

I was reminded by Councillor Andrea Reimer that it’s Drinking Water Week in BC! This is the BC Water & Waste Association‘s time to shine as it’s the one week where we’re actively encouraged to celebrate how great our drinking water is in this province.

During Drinking Water Week (and year-round), the City of Vancouver encourages residents to take three simple water-wise actions in their daily lives:

1. Drink tap water instead of bottled water
2. Water your lawn only one hour per week if needed
3. Install water saving low-flow fixtures and appliances

Learn more about our city’s water, its source, where you can access it (ala public water fountain etc) and more HERE or by clicking on the water fountain map below.

Map of the water fountains in Vancouver available via VanMap