What an odd image to feature in a post about a first visit to Vancouver, British Columbia, eh?
I had always wanted to go up to Vancouver but for some reason it had just never happened. It seemed so complicated to get to Canada – because travel up the coast, or valley, across three states, never seemed like an easy thing.
Last winter my sister let me know that she had a big vacation coming up in May and she wanted to do a road trip to Vancouver. I immediately said come pick me up! When the time came, she did, and off we went!
My sister and I have not ever really travelled together, not since were really young kids, so this was an experiment to be sure. While we are really different styles of people, we still have a lot of common threads and buttons to push, so I had no idea how this trip was going to pan out. The most difficult part was figuring out what common things we wanted to see, and which things we didn’t want to see but were willing to compromise on.
My modus when I travel to cities is, staying a while in one place, visiting museums, hanging out in cafes, foodie stuff, walking, exploring, stuff like that. My sister? Driving, and just looking around. She’s not really a city person. So on the drive to Vancouver we sorted out what our commonalities were and we came up with one. Yes, one. And it was one where I could use my camera, a lot.
Television and movie location scavenger hunts!
We both have favorite shows that are, or were, filmed in Vancouver. Her current favorite is Virgin River. My favorites are Sci-Fi related – Battlestar Galactica, and The Stargates. I did not know that she had done a bit of research before the trip and the first place we saw, other than when we accidently drove by the “Kobol Opera House” on our way to the hotel, was none other than Jack O’Neill’s cabin which, SPOILER ALERT, is smack dab in the middle of North Vancouver in Murdo Frazer Park. It sits near a number of pickleball courts and you could walk there if you visit other North Vancouver places like Grouse Mountain, Capilano Regional Park or the Swinging Bridge. On the day the photo above was taken, they were setting up for the next day’s shoot of an episode of Virgin River.
Our scavenger hunt took about three days and besides Stargate Jack’s and Virgin River Mel’s cabin, it took us to places like Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (BSG Riverwalk Market), Studio 5 at Bridge Studios, University of British Columbia (BSG’s “Colonial Day” garden and theater), Capilano Regional Park which starts at The Cleveland Dam, where, on a good day you can see BSG’s Gates of Hera as well as take a beautiful hike, and on up to Lion’s Bay to see the views that we got out of Gaius Balthar’s living room, which if your are into landscapes, was incredible. Did we have lunch at Jack’s Bar? Why yes, yes we did. We stopped in Squamish/Brackendale on the way to Whistler.
It was definitely not the trip I would have made to Vancouver if I had been by myself, but it was a lot of fun and the scavenger hunt took us all over Vancouver, to neighborhoods and places I probably would not have seen if I had been alone.
You can see more Vancouver images in the British Columbia gallery.
