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CANADA TOURISM GUIDE (VANCOUVER)

A city perched on the edge of a great wilderness, Vancouver offers unmatched opportunities for exploring the outdoors. Paradoxically, within the city limits, Vancouver is intensely urban. There are sidewalk cafes to match those in Paris and shopping streets that rival London's. The forest of high-rises ringing the central part of the city reminds some visitors of New York, while the buzz and movement of Chinatown is reminiscent of San Francisco. Comparisons with other places soon begin to pall, however, as you come to realize that Vancouver is entirely its own creation: a young, self-confident, sparklingly beautiful city, like no place else on earth.

The best way to get to know a city is to explore its different neighbourhoods. Here's a quick guide on where to go and what to look for in Vancouver.

Downtown

Most of Vancouver's commercial and office space is found in a squarish patch starting at Nelson Street and heading north to the harbour, with Homer Street and Burrard Street forming the east and west boundaries respectively. Many of the city's best hotels are also found in this area, clustering near Robson Square and the water's edge. Canada Place, on the waterfront facing Burrard Inlet, is the city's huge convention centre and cruise-ship terminal. The most interesting avenues for visitors are Georgia, Robson, and Granville streets. Georgia Street -- in addition to being the prime address for class-A commercial property -- is where you'll find the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Coliseum-shaped Vancouver Public Library, and the Pacific Centre regional shopping mall. Robson Street is Trend Central, crammed with designer boutiques, restaurants, and cafes. Vancouver's recently revived great white way, Granville Street, is the home of bars and clubs and theaters and pubs and restaurants (along with one or two remaining p*rn shops to add that touch of seedy authenticity).

The West End

This was Vancouver's first upscale neighbourhood, settled in the 1890s by the city's budding class of merchant princes. By the 1930s, most of the grand Edwardian homes had become rooming houses, and in the late 1950s some of the Edwardians came down and high-rise apartments went up. The resulting neighbourhood owes more to the verticality of Manhattan than to the sprawling cities of the west, though the lush landscaping and gardens and gorgeous beaches along English Bay and Stanley Park are pure Northwest. All the necessities of life are contained within the West End's border, especially on Denman and Robson streets: great cafes, good nightclubs, many and varied bookshops, and some of the best restaurants in the city. That's part of what makes it such a sought-after address, but it's also the little things, like the street trees, the mix of high-rise condos and old Edwardians, and the way that, in the midst of such an urban setting, you now and again stumble on a view of the ocean or the mountains.

Gastown

The oldest section of Vancouver, Gastown's charm shines through the souvenir shops and panhandlers. For one thing, it's the only section of the city that has the feel of an old Victorian town -- the buildings stand shoulder to shoulder and cobblestones line the streets. The current Gastown was built from scratch just a few months after an 1886 fire wiped out the entire city. (There are photographs of proper-looking men in black coats selling real estate out of tents erected on the still-smoking ashes.) Also, rents in Gastown have stayed low, so it's still the place to look for a new and experimental art gallery, or a young fashion designer setting up shop, or a piece of beautiful, hand-carved First Nations art in one of the galleries along Water and Hastings streets. It's also the setting for the famous Steam Clock on Water Street.

Alcohol has always been a big part of Gastown's history. The neighbourhood is named for a saloonkeeper -- Gassy Jack Deighton -- who, according to local legend, talked the local mill hands into building a saloon as Vancouver's first structure in return for all the whisky they could drink. Nowadays, Gastown is still liberally endowed with pubs and clubs -- it's one of two or three areas where Vancouverites congregate when the sun goes down.

Chinatown

Even though much of Vancouver's huge Asian population has moved out to Richmond, Chinatown remains a lively kick because it still hasn't become overtly touristy. The low-rise buildings in this lively community are painted in bright colours and sidewalk markets abound. For the tens of thousands of Cantonese-speaking Canadians who live in the surrounding neighbourhoods, Chinatown is simply the place they go to shop. And for many others who have moved to more outlying neighbourhoods, it's still one of the best places to come and eat. One of North America's more populous Chinatowns, the area was settled about the same time as the rest of Vancouver, by migrant laborers brought in to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Many white settlers resented the Chinese labour, and race riots periodically broke out. At one point Vancouver's Chinatown was surrounded with Belfast-like security walls. By the 1940s and 1950s, however, the area was mostly threatened with neglect. In the 1970s, there was a serious plan to tear the whole neighbourhood down and put in a freeway. A huge protest stopped that, and now the area's future seems secure. For visitors, the fun is to simply wander, look, and taste.

Yaletown & False Creek North

Vancouver's former meat-packing and warehouse district, Yaletown has long since been converted to an area of apartment lofts, nightclubs, restaurants, high-end furniture shops, and a fledgling multimedia biz. It's a relatively tiny area and the main streets of interest are Mainland, Hamilton, and Davie. For visitors, it features some interesting cafes and patios, some high-end shops, and a kind of gritty urban feel that you won't find elsewhere in Vancouver. This old-time authenticity provides an essential anchor to the brand spanking new bevy of towers that has arisen in the past 10 years on Pacific Boulevard along the north edge of False Creek. Officially (and unimaginatively) called False Creek North, the area is more often referred to as "the Concorde lands" after the developer, or "the Expo lands" after the world's fair held in 1986 on the land where the towers now stand. Where the shiny newness of Concorde can prove a little disconcerting, gritty Yaletown provides the antidote. And vice versa. The two neighbourhoods are slowly melding into one wonderful whole.

Granville Island

Part crafts fair, part farmers market, part artist's workshop, part mall, and part industrial site, Granville Island seems to have it all. Some 20 years ago, the federal government decided to try its hand at a bit of urban renewal, so they took this piece of industrial waterfront and redeveloped it into . . . well, it's hard to describe. But everything you could name is here: theatres, pubs, restaurants, artists' studios, bookstores, crafts shops, an art school, a hotel, a cement plant, and lots and lots of people. One of the most enjoyable ways to experience the Granville Island atmosphere is to head down to the Granville Island Public Market, grab a latte (and perhaps a piece of cake or pie to boot), then wander outside to enjoy the view of the boats, the buskers, and the children endlessly chasing flocks of squawking seagulls.

Kitsilano

Hard to believe, but in the 1960s Kitsilano was a neighbourhood that had fallen on hard times. Nobody respectable wanted to live there -- the 1920s homes had all been converted to cheap rooming houses -- so hippies moved in. The neighbourhood became Canada's Haight-Ashbury, with coffeehouses, head shops, and lots of incense and long hair. Once the boom generation stopped raging against the machine, they realised that Kitsilano -- right next to the beach, but not quite downtown -- was a very groovy place to live and a fine place to own property. Real estate began an upward trend that has never stopped, and "Kits" became thoroughly yuppified. Nowadays, it's a fun place to wander. There are great bookstores and trendy furniture and housewares shops, lots of consignment clothing stores, snowboard shops, coffee everywhere, and lots of places to eat (every third storefront is a restaurant). The best parts of Kitsilano are the stretch of W. 4th Avenue between Burrard and Balsam streets, and W. Broadway between Macdonald and Alma streets. Oh, and Kits Beach, of course, with that fabulous heated saltwater swimming pool.

Commercial Drive

Known as "The Drive" to Vancouverites, it's the 12-block section from Venables Street to E. 6th Avenue. The Drive has a counterculture feel to it. There are posters for !Cuba Libre! rallies and bits of graffiti reading "Smash Capitalism!" But The Drive also has an immigrant feel to it. The first wave of Italians left cafes such as Calabria, 1745 Commercial Dr. (tel. 604/253-7017) and Caffe Amici, 1344 Commercial Dr. (tel. 604/255-2611). More recent waves of Portuguese, Hondurans, and Guatemalans have also left their mark. And lately, lesbians and vegans and artists have moved in -- the kind of trendy moneyed folks who love to live in this kind of milieu. Shops and restaurants reflect the mix. Think Italian cafe next to the Marxist bookstore across from the vegan deli selling yeast-free Tuscan bread.

Shaughnessy

Shaughnessy's a terrible place to wander around, but it's a great place to drive. (Distances within the neighbourhood are a little too great for a comfortable stroll.) Designed in the 1920s as an enclave for Vancouver's budding elite, this is Vancouver's Westmount or Nob Hill. Thanks to the stranglehold Shaughnessy exerts on local politics -- every second mayor hails from this neighbourhood -- traffic flow is carefully diverted away from the area, and it takes a little bit of driving around to find your way in. It's an effort worth making, however, if only to see the stately homes and monstrous mansions, many of which are now featured in film shoots. To find the neighbourhood, look on the map for the area of curvy and convoluted streets between Cypress and Oak streets and 12th and 32nd avenues. The centre of opulence is the Crescent, an elliptical street to the southwest of Granville and 16th Avenue.

Richmond

Twenty years ago, Richmond was mostly farmland, with a bit of sleepy suburb. Now it's Asia West, an agglomeration of shopping malls geared to the new -- read: rich, educated, and successful -- Chinese immigrant. The residential areas of the city are not worth visiting (unless tract homes are your thing), but malls like the Aberdeen Mall or the Yao Han Centre are something else. It's like getting into your car in Vancouver and getting out in Singapore.

Steveston

Steveston, located at the southwest corner of Richmond by the mouth of the Fraser River, once existed for nothing but salmon. Fishermen set out from its port to catch the migrating sockeye, and returned to have the catch cleaned and canned. Huge processing plants covered its waterfront, where thousands of workers gutted millions of fish. Much of that history is reprised in the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site, near the wharf at Bayview Street and Fourth Avenue (tel. 604/664-9009). Since the fishery was automated long ago, Steveston's waterfront has been fixed up. There are public fish sales, charter trips up the river or out to the Fraser delta, and, above all, a laid-back, small-town atmosphere.

Punjabi Market

India imported. Most of the businesses on this 4-block stretch of Main Street, from 48th up to 52nd avenue, are run by and cater to Indo-Canadians, primarily Punjabis. The area is best seen during business hours, when the fragrant scent of spices wafts out from food stalls, while the sound of Hindi pop songs blares from hidden speakers. Young brides hunt through sari shops or seek out suitable material in discount textile outlets. Memsaab Boutique, 6647 Main St. (tel. 604/322-0250), and Frontier Cloth House, 6695 Main St. (tel. 604/325-4424), specialize in richly coloured silk saris, shawls, fabrics, and costume jewelry. A good place to eat is Nirvana, 2313 Main St. (tel. 604/872-8779), which offers a medley of Indian favourites.


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