Days 82 - 88: Final week in Sechelt and Vancouver

Unfortunately the smoke from the wildfires persists over Vancouver and the whole area - down the coast as far as Seattle, eastwards as far as Calgary! Hard to escape. We spent a couple of days on the Sunshine Coast but the air was no clearer there.

Ferry ride in the smoke, as compared to...

Ferry ride in the sun (same trip, in June)

Returning to the Sunshine Coast gave us a chance to spend a couple of days more with my Mum, and also a chance to check out the new mandala at Roberts' Creek.

We also checked out the Sechelt Aquatic Centre - and wished we had done so before! Swimming pool, kids' pool (open to all, with river), waterslide, sauna, steam bath and jacuzzi - all for $2!

We returned to Vancouver just in time to meet my friends Stefano and Alessandro from the English-speaking hiking group and show them around town. Unfortunately Vancouver is still not looking its best, so we skipped Grouse Mountain, but we did go to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which I had never been to before! It is expensive and crowded - a total tourist trap - but lots of fun! Convenient and well-organised, too: they pick you up with a shuttle bus downtown and take you back when you are done. Gives visitors who are only in Vancouver for a few days a taste of what it's like outside the big city (if they can imagine the same kind of setting, but without the crowds and the infrastructure).

On our last day in Vancouver the wind changed and the smoke finally began to clear, so my friends visiting from Italy had a chance to see the mountains before they left. We spent the morning at the Museum of Anthropology of the University of British Columbia, followed by a picnic on Jericho Beach.

Poking about in the drawers at the Museum of Anthropology

Days 76-81: Up in smoke

Spent days 76 through 81 of my trip back in Vancouver. Not a great time to be here - the hazy brown smoke cloud that I spotted rolling in from the east when I was landing in Vancouver on the way back from Masset has settled in over the city and stayed here. This is smoke from 126 wildfires currently burning in the province of British Columbia, out of a total of 861 fires this season, making this summer the worst fire season in 60 years. Almost 5000 square kilometres of forest have been burnt up so far - an area almost the size of the region of Liguria!

The nearest wildfire is over 150 km from Vancouver, so the main concern here in the city is air quality, currently worse here than in Beijing. And the fact that the mountains have entirely disappeared from view, making Vancouver look like just another big city... well, we still have the beaches, I guess! Only there's no view of the mountains from them any more!

The smoke was just beginning to roll in over the city centre when we arrived Monday night.

The "view" from Second Beach Wednesday night

Under this apocalyptic sky people continue to go about their daily business. And even their summer fun - people are going paddle-boarding, kayaking and yachting in False Creek and swimming at the city's beaches, as if nothing unusual were going on, and fireworks nights, concerts and festivals have been going on according to schedule.

We spent Wednesday evening at Second Beach to catch Sara's friends from the bands Kutapira and The Boom-Booms in concert before the fireworks. 

Kutapira in concert

During the rest of the week I got together with a few friends I hadn't seen since my last visit, did some last minute shopping, and toured Gastown and the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Gardens with the friends who had hosted me in Seattle and Philadelphia earlier in this trip, who were up in Vancouver for Pride weekend.

In the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens with Bruce, Tom and Amy

On Saturday night Tom and I met up with my Mum and my sister to catch Rodriguez's show at the Orpheum Theatre, a beautiful theatre built in downtown Vancouver in 1927. And then on Sunday, we went down to the West End for the annual Pride Parade.

This guy walked right into my picture, but I think he made it better!

Legalize gay marijuana???