Vancouver Movie Month Competition! And the City's Curious Places...

It's Vancouver Movie Month here in Melbourne, Australia, and the Rooftop Cinema is screening a selection of the many movies shot in the Canadian city. You can see the movies here - marked with "Made in Vancouver".

As part of the event, Tourism Vancouver has kindly provided a free double pass to any of the Vancouver Movie Month screenings, to be won by one of my readers.

To enter, read the post below then leave your name and email address (or phone number, if you prefer) in the comments field below it by 5pm Melbourne time on Tuesday 11 February 2020. Don't worry, I'll keep your contact info confidential rather than publishing it to the world.

I'll print them out, place all the valid entries in a hat, and Narrelle Harris will ably assist as designated barrel girl to draw the winner. I'll then pass your contact details to the Tourism Vancouver PR team who will contact you with your prize.

Good luck! And now for something rather curious: an article I wrote after my first visit to Vancouver some years ago, hosted by Destination Canada. With updated details where necessary, I give you...
 

Curious Vancouver

“In like Flynn!”

It’s an expression that beautifully sums up Errol Flynn’s attitude to life. Not only did the Tasmanian-born actor become one of Hollywood’s leading men in a series of action movies in the 1930s, but he also lived the rollicking life of a bad boy star.

Then he ended up dead on a slab in Vancouver.

I know this because I’m standing in the former autopsy room that’s part of the Canadian city’s Police Museum.

On one wall is a macabre display of human body sections preserved in formaldehyde, with notes explaining how each victim died. Adjacent to these is a portrait of Flynn, with a replica of his autopsy report beside him.

Vancouver has a distinctly colourful past, having begun life as a wild logging town in the 19th century. As I wander its streets, I find even more curious items...

Steam Clock. This odd piece of street furniture is located in Gastown - the oldest part of Vancouver’s downtown area. At all hours of the day, you’ll find tourists snapping shots of this tall fixture which resembles Big Ben’s clock tower with steam pouring out of its top. It’s undeniablly appealing kitsch.
Corner of Water & Cambie Streets

Japadog. In front of the Sutton Place Hotel is the original location of Japadog, a hotdog stand selling Japanese-style dogs, topped with ingredients such as dried seaweed. The most popular dog is the beef terimayo, but I opt for the kurobuta terimayo (“Most highly prized pork!”). It’s tasty, and the seaweed adds a... unique flavour.
Corner Burrard and Smithe Streets, and other locations.

Blood Alley. Depending on who you talk to, this laneway got its name from a) executions; b) butchers’ shops; or c) a clever marketing idea. Whatever the truth, it’s full of rough-edged character as I walk along it, past brick walls and rusting fire escapes. Then, unwittingly, I stumble across Salt Tasting Room, a smooth wine bar serving fine Canadian wine from the Okanagan Valley and beyond, with a view of the alley through its windows.
Blood Alley runs parallel to and between Water Street and W Cordova Street.

Jimi Hendrix Shrine. The late rocker may be remembered as a famous New Yorker, but he also spent time in Vancouver as a boy, living with his grandmother. His Canadian connection is commemorated in this shrine and its small adjacent garden, filled with Hendrix memorabilia.
209 Union St; currently closed pending renovation, scheduled to reopen 2022.

Exotic World Museum. In the back of an antiques shop, this curious collection of faded captioned photos, animal bones and wooden masks was assembled by the late Harold and Barbara Morgan over decades of travel. They’re still with the collection in spirit; I give a friendly nod to Harold and Barbara’s ashes, which I discover are housed in ornate boxes on a shelf above my head.
Inside Alexander Lamb Antiques, 3271 Main Street (Note: I've been unable to verify this museum still exists in 2020.)

Sins of the City. Strolling through Chinatown and the seedy Downtown Eastside, members of this history walking tour hear commentary about gambling, opium dens, prostitution... and a captivating post-mortem tale about Errol Flynn’s body, which is unfortunately not suitable for readers who might be eating. I’ll leave you to discover the disgusting truth for yourself.
From 240 East Cordova St.

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OK... it's time to enter the competition for those two Vancouver Movie Month tickets! Post your name and email address (and/or phone number) in the comments field below by 5pm Melbourne time on Tuesday 11 February 2020, and I'll post the successful winner's name here after it's drawn from a hat. Good luck and bonne chance!

Review: Come from Away, Melbourne

I first heard of this musical at a business lunch, of all things. As it’s set in Newfoundland, the marketing body Destination Canada invited the producer along to an event where reps from Canada’s different provinces sing their praises to journalists.

Newfoundland’s probably the least known province to Aussies, or close to it, as it’s so remote. But that remoteness lies at the heart of this musical, which tells the story of what happened in a small Newfie town after the events of 11 September 2001.

Gander once had a big and busy airport, used as a refuelling stop by aircraft in the early days of trans-Atlantic flight. But as commercial planes became powerful enough to leap that ocean in a single bound, its airport slipped into irrelevance.

Until September 11. When US airspace was shut down after the terrorist attacks on New York City, dozens of passenger planes in the air were ordered to land at Gander, whose runways were big enough to cope with most aircraft.

It soon became obvious that their passengers were going to be stuck in Gander for an indeterminate number of days. As the town instantly doubled in population with these thousands of newcomers, crisis loomed – until the people of Gander leapt into action, housing the stranded, making them meals, inviting them home, even taking care of the animals that had been overlooked in aircraft cargo holds.

It’s a heartwarming true story, set to a background of tragedy, and it was this example of human generosity that inspired Come from Away’s creators to set it to music. I would never have considered that genre for a drama like this, but it’s perfect – the music and choreography perfectly brings out both the pace of those days and the emotions of all involved.

To the production’s credit, it isn’t at all syrupy. There’s a lot of positivity in the dialogue and lyrics as the startled townsfolk and dazed passengers get to know and help each other, but there are also darker undertones that anchor the story to reality.

These include suspicions levelled at Muslims among the passengers, tensions within frayed relationships, worries about loved ones far away, and always the horror of what has happened in New York. This last factor is crystallised in the form of a woman whose son is a firefighter in NYC, she having no idea of whether he’s alive or dead.

The cast do a marvellous job of speaking, singing, dancing, interacting, at a nonstop pace which reflects what it must have felt like to be in Gander for those four fraught days. Actors play multiple roles, switching from passengers to townspeople to officials via simple but effective changes in clothing or headwear.

There’s some lovely overt humour, including that of the townswoman whose reports to the audience always involve her in an imaginary romantic entanglement with whatever sexy pilot or doctor or teacher she’s been dealing with. There are also laughs from the mild collision of small-town ways with those of the wider cosmopolitan world, re food and sexuality and language.

In the end, Come from Away is a homage to the better side of humanity, while never overlooking its worst impulses. In its portrayal of a crisis that left no one unchanged by the strange interlude they spent in the middle of nowhere in the aftermath of destruction, it’s a potent message of hope and a great mood enhancer.

Come from Away is now playing at the Comedy Theatre, 240 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, Australia. For details and bookings, visit the Australian production’s website.

The Parliamentary Cats of Ottawa, Canada

For many years a cat sanctuary was located within the grounds of Canada's national Parliament in Ottawa, until being closed in 2013. I was lucky enough to visit in in 2010 courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission. 

To mark a marvellous lost institution, here's my story, which ran in an Australian newspaper but never made it online...

A cat may look at a king, as the old proverb goes. Presumably that also applies to queens, even a statue of a queen of the most far-flung empire the world has ever known.

I’m standing in the grounds of Canada’s Parliament in the capital Ottawa, watching a cat who’s looking at a statue of Queen Victoria which is located to the west of the main Parliament building.

It’s an impressive statue, with the Queen Empress on a plinth, being handed a victory garland while a lion lurks below her.

The cat, however, is unimpressed with this display of imperial grandeur, and wanders off. I follow it to one of Ottawa’s great curios, the Cat Sanctuary tucked among the nearby trees and bushes.

There are now a number of felines coming and going around me, passing between the bars of a fence which surrounds their home.

Leaning across the railings, I can see a long, low wooden structure shaped like a miniature house, with a pitched roof and a timber deck.

Mind you, cats aren’t the only visitors here; as I watch, a cheeky black squirrel darts up onto the deck and starts eating from one of the bowls of dry food, heedless of claw-related peril.

It’s all charmingly amateur in appearance, a pleasing contrast to the austere and ornate parliamentary buildings. I discover later that it’s no coincidence that the cats set up home here; until the 1950s the Parliament kept a group of cats in residence to combat rodents within the buildings.

Later, groundskeepers fed felines within the sprawling grounds, and one keeper, René Chartrand, constructed shelters for them.

The cats are still cared for by volunteers, and to its credit the Parliament has adopted the sanctuary, citing it on its website as “a symbol of compassion, one of the important elements of Canadian society.”

Well, good for them. And so I turn from my moggie companions to explore the Parliament itself.

My first impression is that the long central building with a clock tower bears a passing resemblance to the Houses of Parliament in London; though this Parliament dates only to 1916, replacing a predecessor which was gutted by fire.

I pass through a door which is a riot of carved stone depicting a rampant lion and unicorn, then through security to join a free tour along with assorted tourists and a group of Ukrainian interns.

As we pass through its halls, I’m reminded of the baronial castle style which seems such a feature of Ottawa’s older buildings.

Solid but lavishly decorated stone walls and corridors lead to a room with an intricately decorated glass ceiling bearing symbols of Canada’s founding cultures and, less excitingly, its first government departments.

Then we reach the impressively decorated chambers of Parliament’s two houses. Behind these is the only survivor of the 1916 fire, the 1876 library annexe. It’s magnificent, a timber-panelled gem which is as much a historical keepsake as a place of research.

As I exit and make my way east to the Rideau Canal, an attractive waterway which was originally conceived as a military supply route should the United States invade Canada, I ponder on the parallels between Canada and Australia’s imperial past. And on cats, who recognise no empires.

Vancouver by Neon

It’s no secret that I love a bit of neon. There’s something magical about this type of signage that’s mostly now vanished from the world’s streets, even though it was the epitome of post-WWII commercial razzmatazz.

I’ve written about a neon museum in Warsaw, Poland, and another in Las Vegas, USA. And in 2017 I visited an exhibition of neon at the Museum of Vancouver in Canada.

Vancouver is quite genteel nowadays, but back in the 1950s it had tens of thousands of neon signs clustered through the city centre, advertising every type of business.

Some people thought this was impressive, many thought it tawdry. By the 1970s the city council was severely limiting public neon signage and it started to go the way of the dodo.

In recent years nostalgia for neon has surged, which led to the Museum of Vancouver retrieving and restoring a number of signs, and showing them within a dedicated exhibition called Neon Vancouver.

It’s great, and I walked through it when I visited in 2017. Here are some of the highlights:


 
 
 
 

It’s a cool exhibition - when is neon ever not cool? - and I encourage you to see it next time you’re in Vancouver.

Neon Vancouver is an exhibition within the Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver, Canada. See its website for entry fee and opening hours.

Montreal, Canada: What Lies Beneath

This article from my first visit to Canada appeared in The Sunday Age newspaper in 2011, but never went online: so here it is. I was hosted on that trip by the Canadian Tourism Commission.

When the architects of Montreal’s underground shopping mall beneath Place Ville-Marie drew up their plans in 1962, they had little idea what they’d started.

As newer malls and office buildings were constructed, they were all linked together. Thus the Underground City was born.

RÉSO, a play on the French word for network, “réseau”, is now the largest underground complex in the world, stretching some 33 kilometres and linking malls, museums, train stations, government buildings and hotels.

All can be reached without ever setting foot in the outside world; a compelling alternative in winter, when temperatures can plunge to minus 15 degrees.

I’m usually allergic to shopping malls, but RÉSO intrigues me and I decide to walk its entire main loop (with a Metro trip in the middle)...

10am. I pause to look up at the statue of a young Queen Victoria in the centre of Square-Victoria, then spot the RÉSO entry sign and head down the rabbit hole. Below ground, I enter a long, strangely curved brick-lined tunnel, its curves accented by wavy tracks of lights in the ceiling.

10.25am. Nearing Place Bonaventure, I’m surprised to realise I’m back at street level, as I can see manicured lawns out of the occasional window. Soon after I descend into the ominous-sounding Le Passage. It’s pure 1970s down here, with exposed concrete walls and stained timber handrails.

10.50am. After twists and turns, I emerge into the lofty hall of the Gare Centrale, Montreal’s main train station. Above me there’s a magnificent bas-relief frieze depicting stylised figures engaged in everyday activities with a 20th century gender bias - men working in construction or playing lacrosse, women teaching or planting trees.

11.15am. I’m heading into prime retail territory now, up pebble-dash steps into a sunlit atrium with a low glass ceiling. There’s a cafe beneath the glass, dotted with low black couches on which shoppers lounge. It’s surrounded by shops, and I realise this is Place Ville-Marie, the mall that started it all.

11.25am. A few more turnings and I’m beneath Rue Ste-Catherine, Montreal’s major shopping strip. Above me towers the upmarket Centre Eaton, the largest shopping mall in the city, with 175 stores over four levels surmounted by a vast glass roof.

11.35am. I catch a train from McGill Metro station to Place-des-Arts. At the end of the Place-des-Arts station concourse is a huge and beautiful backlit artwork depicting Montreal’s musical history across multiple glass panels.

12 noon. Entering the Musée d’Art Contemporain from beneath, I encounter a huge wall projection called Le Tournis, in which a camera spins dizzyingly around the centre of a room while glass smashes loudly between the foreground and the far wall. Oddly, its unrefined chaos makes a refreshing counterpoint to the controlled nature of the Underground City.

12.30pm. After the art, it’s startling to return to RÉSO and enter the Complexe Desjardins’ vast terraced shopping mall. At ground level there’s a fountain with a 30 metre high jet that almost grazes the lofty skylight. I wonder whether the settings have ever slipped, resulting in a soggy ceiling.

1pm. Back above ground at Square-Victoria, I discover the morning’s clouds have departed and it’s turned into a perfect day - bright, sunny and warm. The perfect day, ironically, to be outdoors.

Review: BNE-YVR in Air Canada Business Class

On this trip I travelled courtesy of Destination Canada, and was upgraded by Air Canada.

Last year I took the 13-hour flight from Brisbane to Vancouver aboard one of Air Canada's Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner planes, right up the front in seat 1D. This is what it was like.

The seat

As expected, there was plenty of space to move in Business Class. My seat was a pod in a central set of two, with the seat angled toward the centre of the plane.

The seat was heavily cushioned though still fairly firm, and could be reconfigured to personal taste by touchscreen controls - all the way down to a lie-flat bed.

Storage space was not as generous as some versions of Business I'd experienced on other airlines, and there were no bins directly above the central seats. However, there were sufficient slots and shelves into which to load my personal belongings.

A personal comfort pack contained toiletries, an eye mask and socks, with a choice of earbuds or quality headphones within a concealed compartment.

The screen

In front of me was a large entertainment screen. Its menus were highly responsive to touch, and contained details of food and drink, as well as shopping options.

Neither the movie nor TV show selections seemed very impressive, and it was difficult to find recent cinema releases. However there were some decent viewing choices among each: cutting edge television comedy such as Atlanta for example, and popular Hollywood movies such as Logan.

Something I hadn't seen before was a Pride category under movies, with critically-acclaimed films with gay themes including Milk and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. A clever innovation was a Personal Favourites menus you could build, then click on to watch.

The eats

Lunch was the first meal of the flight, for which I chose barramundi fillet with ginger-soy glaze and bok choy, which was attractively presented and tasty. It was preceded by an excellent smoked salmon appetiser and a green salad.

Other main courses on the menu were lamb cutlets, braised chicken breast, and a vegetarian pasta. Afterward there was cheese, fruit, blueberry cheesecake, or ice cream.

Snacks were available on request during our journey, including a chicken leek pie, smoked salmon, a tuna sandwich, and hummus. No mere packet of pretzels in Business Class!

Before we landed in the Vancouver morning, we were served brunch with the choice of an omelette, Belgian waffles, or a chicken pasta.

The judgement

Air Canada's Business Class service on the Dreamliner was a comfortable, relaxing experience, providing a good way to arrive in shape on the long trans-Pacific haul. A good choice... if you can afford it.

2017: My Year in Travel

I was hosted on the trips mentioned below by the relevant local tourism authorities.

Everyone else in the media publishes 'year in review' round-ups at this time of the year, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Here are personal highlights from my travels over the past twelve months...

1. Admiring the Asian-European 'fusion architecture' of Macau.

I didn't know much about this former Portuguese territory before visiting it in February, but I quickly learned its European connection had lasted much longer than that of Hong Kong. The Portuguese were in Macau for over four centuries, from 1557 to 1999; by comparison, Hong Kong was under British rule for just over 150 years.

As a result, there's quite a mix of Asian and European influences in Macau's architecture, with striking contrasts. The best example I saw was a former covered marketplace in Taipa Village (pictured above), which has Greek pillars and a Chinese roof.

For more, read my blog post about about my favourite place in Macau.

2. Riding the narrow trams of Hong Kong.

I enjoyed lots about Hong Kong on my first visit there - the food, its cultural attractions, the busy urban streets. One thing that stood out was the city's tram system, which runs along the north side of Hong Kong Island.

I love trams, and these ones are particularly atmospheric. In addition to being double-decker, they're rather narrow, lending them a charmingly improbable fairytale look. It can be hard to get a seat on them sometimes, but they're hands-down more fun than catching the MTR underground railway.

3. Visiting Ballarat on a White Night.

Having missed Melbourne's annual White Night arts event while I was in Hong Kong, I took the chance to attend the first regional staging of it in Ballarat. It was loads of fun, being out until 4am on busy streets full of happy locals ogling illuminations which drew on the city's rich gold rush and Aboriginal history.

I wrote about the experience here.

4. Discovering First Nations culture in Vancouver.

I was impressed by Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology when I visited the Canadian city in July. It houses a wonderful collection of Indigenous art from the past two centuries, with an impressive new gallery in which modern-day First Nations artists comment on the cultural underpinnings of the art of their forebears.

Read my post about the museum here.

5. Cruising the Alaska Marine Highway.

Not all Alaskan cruises are on huge luxury cruise ships. Embarking at Prince Rupert, Canada, I took the MV Matanuska to the Alaskan state capital Juneau, then on to former gold rush town Skagway.

These car ferries (with cabins) are used by locals as much as visitors, providing a great way to see the beautiful scenery on the Inside Passage while not being tied to a cruise itinerary.

I wrote about cruising the Alaska Marine Highway in this article for Lonely Planet.

6. Taking the train to Yukon.

There had to be a train in this list, right? You know how much I like rail travel. And a ride along the White Pass & Yukon Route railway is spectacular, with the narrow-gauge train chugging up from the Alaskan coast at Skagway through the mountains across the Canadian border to Carcross, Yukon. It's a brilliant journey, with magnificent scenery.

7. Meeting a crocodile on the Sunshine Coast.

While attending the annual Australian Society of Travel Writers conference in Queensland in August, I was able to explore the late Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo.

It's a lovely place to visit, with plenty of interesting animals, but the highlight for me was the arena show in which a couple of staff members (and a foolhardy white bird) hung around very close to a big saltwater crocodile - see my video clip above.

You can read more about my Australia Zoo visit here.

8. Walking Hadrian's Wall in the UK.

I like a bit of walking, but I'm not one for multi-day treks. So when I learned about the hop-on, hop-off bus which serves key points along what was once the Roman Empire's border wall, I realised it'd be possible to do a shorter hike between bus stops.

So Narrelle and I spend over two hours strolling west of the former Roman fort at Housesteads - then transferred to the bus and headed off for lunch.

Walking the undulating trail next to Hadrian's Wall was harder than I'd expected, but I'm glad we did it. Not only was it good to get out of my urban comfort zone, I felt I'd become closer to the inhabitants of the Roman era, otherwise so distant in time.

I wrote about our Hadrian's Wall visit for the Globe & Mail newspaper in Canada; read it here.

So... how was your year in travel?

Vancouver Eating

On this trip I was hosted by Destination Canada (destinationcanada.com), Destination British Columbia (HelloBC.com) and Tourism Vancouver (tourismvancouver.com).

On my recent visit to Vancouver, Canada, I had the opportunity to eat at some great restaurants. Here are three I liked - add them to the list for your next Van visit:

1. The Acorn. On my first day in Vancouver, I joined a mural tour in the Mount Pleasant district, then walked along Main Street to this excellent vegetarian restaurant (recommended by Vancouverite colleague Nikki Bayley).

It's a great place, with a friendly, relaxed atmosphere and an informal decor - on the hot sunny evening I visited, the windows were open to catch the breeze, so there was a sense of being connected with the street life outside.

Of the dishes, I particularly enjoyed the beer battered halloumi with zucchini and potato pancake, smashed peas, mint yogurt, and lemon balm. It looked - as intended - like a clever vego tribute to fish and chips:

Find it at: 3995 Main St, Vancouver. theacornrestaurant.ca

2. Harvest Community Foods. Two nights later I was ready to leave on The Canadian sleeper train to Jasper, part of a long rail and ferry journey up to Alaska and Yukon. It made sense to eat near Pacific Union Station, so this simple eatery on the edge of Chinatown was ideal.

Harvest focuses on healthy, sustainable produce, just what I needed. When travelling, it's easy to make poor food choices, but everything here looked great...

... so I went for a tofu dish, with a nut-based side salad, and a glass of home-made grape and green tea kombucha:

Find it at: 243 Union St, Vancouver. harvestunion.ca

3. Maenam. When I returned from Yukon to Vancouver a few weeks later, I had dinner at this impressive Thai restaurant in Kitsilano. Dish after dish came out, as I shared a vegetarian version of the "chef's menu" selection.

Sadly I was too overwhelmed by the excellent food to make detailed notes, so I'm merely going to share some photos with you. Trust me - it was all delicious.

Find it at: 1938 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver. maenam.ca

Have fun eating your own path through Vancouver's great dining scene. Bon appetit!

A Day in Jasper, Canada

On this trip I was a guest of Destination Canada and Tourism Jasper.

During my recent trip to Canada I had a day free in Jasper, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. This period was dictated by the timetables of two VIA Rail trains I was catching - The Canadian up from Vancouver, then the train northwest to Prince Rupert. So I hadn't thought much in advance about what I'd do in the town.

Turned out there were plenty of options. As Jasper is a popular holiday town in a beautiful location, there are lots of short tours and eating choices for visitors. Here's what I did with my day in the mountains.

1. Motorbike tour. In the middle of town is the base of Jasper Motorcycle Tours. It takes visitors on tours to nearby lakes and lookouts, perched on the back of, or in the sidecar of a Harley-Davidson.

There was a certain amount of theatrical dress-up involved, as the guest gets kitted out in leathers first:

Then it was off into the mountains outside town for a while, for a taste of the open road and some impressive scenery:

2. To the heights. After my motorcycle jaunt, I headed to the base station of the Jasper Skytram, a cable car that runs to the top of Whistlers Mountain (and whose staff seemed mostly Aussies!). From the top there are great views of the township and the surrounding mountains:

3. Dinner in the woods. To finish off the day, I had an excellent dinner in the atmospheric dining room of Tekarra Lodge, just outside town.

A set of cabins built in the 1940s, the Lodge has a certain retro charm. I was also told that its restaurant was haunted (but maybe just by the ghost of that deer on the wall...). There was certainly a Twin Peaks vibe to the decor.

I didn't meet any ghosts after dark, but the intersection of the Miette and Athabasca Rivers seemed a good place at which to finish my Jasper day. The next morning, I had a train to catch.