Page 142 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL FALL 2020 South Africa

from Victoria’s harbor to Vancouver’s — just a 35- Diego County”), Paul sent me congratulations on
minute flight that basically took me from hotel to Facebook — I hadn’t heard from him in nearly 40
hotel. The scenic flight was well worth it for about years. So when I was planning my trip, I reached
$200, especially since an hour’s taxi from the ferry out to him to see if he’d want to go on a hike with
to downtown would have been expensive. me in his fair city. He did and proved to be a valu-
The walk to the seaplane terminal takes about able guide.
10 minutes from The Empress, and the plane lands He spent two days with me, showing me the nat-
harbor side in Vancouver. While I could have ural beauties that abound in Vancouver.
walked to my hotel from there, I grabbed a cab for First on that list has to be Stanley Park. Created
the very short ride with luggage. I stayed at the in 1888, Stanley Park is truly one of the greatest
Four Seasons in downtown Vancouver —but alas, urban parks in the world. Encompassing nearly
you cannot. It closed in January 2020, but I didn’t 1,000 acres at the end of downtown Vancouver’s
even know that was happening when I was there in peninsula, it is home to rainforests, lush gardens,
November 2019. I should have chosen the Fair- 17 miles of trails, beautiful beaches and amazing
mont Hotel Vancouver, one of the city’s historic views of the city from the park’s famous seawall.
properties that has been elegantly restored, where The seawall is part of the Seaside Greenway path-
we stayed in 1964. way, the world’s longest uninterrupted waterfront
Vancouver metro has about 2.5 million people path for walking and biking — it stretches 16 miles
compared to Victoria’s metro population of about from the Vancouver Convention Center to the foot
370,000, so it’s a much bigger city. of Trafalgar Street, including 5.5 miles along Stan-
While British naval Captain George Vancouver ley Park’s seawall. And those rainforests remain as
explored the area in 1792, it took another century lush as they were in the 1880s since the park is
until Europeans settled here. Of course, its First that old — there are some half-a-million trees —
Nations people, like in Victoria, had been here for red cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir — here and
some 10,000 years already. some are hundreds of years old.
When the Canadian Pacific Railway completed Paul and I also ventured to Queen Elizabeth
its transcontinental line from Eastern Canada in Park, just 15 minutes’ drive from downtown and
the late 1880s, Vancouver quickly surpassed Vic- considered Vancouver’s horticultural jewel. It’s the
toria as the region’s commercial hub. Vancouver highest point in Vancouver so offers grand views of
was incorporated in 1886. the city, mountains and North Shore. Queen Eliza-
Today it is a lively, beautiful city carved between beth Park’s 200 acres hold its Quarry Gardens, Ar-
the Burrard Inlet of English Bay and the Fraser boretum (the city’s first formed in 1949), Rose
River. The city’s stunning backdrop is formed by Garden and Bloedel Conservatory.
the North Shore Mountains, where Grouse Moun- The next day, Paul picked me up and drove us to
tain and The Lions are its most famous peaks. Capilano River Regional Park, which is a stunning
Grouse Mountain is site of a popular ski area as natural oasis literally just 20 minutes’ drive from
well as hiking trails. The Capilano River Valley runs downtown. Nearby the Capilano Suspension
through these mountains, too, and is another bea- Bridge Park is a famous attraction, but Paul ad-
con for hikers. vised that it would be far more crowded than the
Traveling on my own, I reconnected with an old hiking trails of Capilano River, so we opted for that
friend in Vancouver. When I worked at REI in Seat- park instead.
tle in the late 1970s as copy chief of its catalog Meandering along trails through cedar and fir
when it had only one store in Capitol Hill, Paul Her- forests, we followed the Capilano River from the
aty, a mountain climber from Vancouver, would Cleveland Dam that forms Capilano Lake. We
come to get his boots repaired. That’s when we watched some fisher folk gamely tossing their lines
formed a deep connection. into the river from its huge and high rocky shores,
Decades went by. After I wrote my hiking guide hoping they watched their steps. This day was the
book for San Diego County (“Take a Hike: San kind of day I love — forest bathing among giant old

142 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE 2020