View from Granville Island

On this year’s return to Nanjing, we decided to do the complete opposite of last year’s Hawaiian R&R…. & thus headed up north, to take in an Alaskan cruise (see posting above). This gave us a wonderful excuse to spend a couple of days in Vancouver, a physically beautiful & very environmentally-conscious city, on a first-time visit.

It’s a relatively new city – it was only established 130 years ago – and while the old photographs of timber cutting & logging in its early years document its rugged and outdoorsy character, today’s two chief industries (tourism & movie production) require a rather different sensibility.

Treetop walk

We toured the city’s highlights, which included the cedar pines & totem poles of Stanley Park (which initially served — and was kept undeveloped — as a military reservation, since the city feared an invasion by those bellicose Americans); a swinging suspension bridge over the Capilano River, a former logging area that now has ‘treetop’ and ‘cliffside’ walkways as well; and Granville Island, a former sandbar filled in with dredging materials…. which hosted industrial activities for several decades, fell into disuse, but has now been reinvigorated with a hip new market/arts/theater tourist lifestyle.

Vancouver steam clock

While the city’s physical beauty is apparent, I was told that its most-photographed site has no such environmental attributes. Instead, it can be found in the city’s oldest section, Gastown, and is…… a steam clock!

I have to admit that – despite my technical background, & interest in industrial things — this is something I had never seen. So, of course, I took a photo as well.