Bella Bella Walks the Seawall: False Creek

Well, I weakened, and enjoyed a mug of hot chocolate and a pastry at Granville Island (... burp). Time now for some more exercise!

East of Granville Island, Vancouver’s seawall winds along the southern shore of False Creek. We stroll past snug condominiums, the False Creek Elementary School, and the lawns of Charleson Park.

If any of us felt hungry again, we could take a break at a waterside restaurant like Monk McQueens, which is built out over a pretty marina.

Sailboats also anchor right in the middle of False Creek. Their owners row ashore in little dinghies, or rowboats.

Looking north across False Creek toward the Cambie Bridge, we see B.C. Place Stadium.

The stadium was built in 1983, when Vancouver was getting ready to host the 1986 world’s fair.

Expo 86 changed the eastern end of False Creek into a wonderland of national and corporate pavilions, museums, restaurants, theatres, plazas, and playgrounds. Over 22 million people visited Expo 86 between May and October of 1986.

Do you remember something from my last story that would have made 1986 special?

That’s right – 1986 marked 100 years since Vancouver was incorporated as a city.

B.C. Place Stadium has just been given a snazzy new roof.

You can climb a stairway from the seawall up onto the Cambie Bridge. It has a broad sidewalk that will take you north right to the stadium.

Like the Granville Street Bridge, this bridge has been built three times. It first went up in 1891, then was re-built in 1911. In 1912, Canada’s Governor General, the Duke of Connaught, visited Vancouver with his wife and daughter. The Cambie Street Bridge was re-named the Connaught Bridge in his honour.

The bridge was most recently re-built in 1985, as the city got ready for Expo 86. It was once again named the Cambie Bridge. Henry John Cambie was a surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He helped bring the trans-continental railway to Vancouver.

The first cross-Canada train travelled from Montreal to Port Moody in 1886. Mr. Cambie decided that Vancouver looked really nice, and settled here himself in 1887.

As we amble east on the seawall past the Cambie Bridge, we come next to a group of tall buildings called The Village on False Creek. This was built to house over 2,800 athletes during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

The Olympic Village is now a residential area with shops, a community centre, and pretty outside plazas.

What do you think of these giant sparrows? They’re even bigger than the New Zealand “moa” birds I wrote about in Wellington last December 10^th!

They were created for the Southeast False Creek Olympic Plaza by a local artist named Myfanwy MacLeod.

You can catch ferry boats here to ride to other docks around False Creek.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A high-tech bubble of a building landed at the eastern end of False Creek for Expo 86. It was built to be the Expo Centre. In 1990, it re-opened as a great science museum. It’s now called Science World at Telus World of Science.

Yup, it’s hard to keep me out of playgrounds!

Vancouver’s seawall loops past Science World to bring us west, back toward the Cambie Bridge. 

In 1986, that angular glass building behind me on the left was the B.C. Pavilion. Lately, it’s been busy as the Edgewater Casino (a playground for grown-ups).

The northern shore of False Creek is lined with tall apartment buildings and condominiums, restaurants, shops, parks, and marinas.

There are neat sculptures, too. This one had me really curious …

… turns out that it’s a spaceship!

  These kids are playing street-hockey in Coopers’ Park, under the Cambie Bridge. The park gets its name from Sweeney Cooperage and Sawmill, a company that made barrels here from 1889 until 1980. Sweeney Cooperage was the biggest barrel-maker in the whole British Empire.

We can keep walking west along the seawall, under the Granville and Burrard Bridges, toward Vancouver’s West End. I hope you’ll join me again for that stage of our adventure, in my next story.

Story © S. Clouthier

Photos © S. Clouthier and D. Wei