No one complains about Vancouver more than Vancouverites. The fall is too wet, the summer too dry, and Whistler is just too crowded in the winter. People walking outside aren’t friendly, traffic downtown is slow, and the Expo line’s trains are too loud (and none of the busses come that frequently). The one positive that folks across the board seem be able to agree on is the fact “you can get from the beach to the mountains in one afternoon”.
It was this line that got me thinking - if I’d just moved to Vancouver for work, and was looking to fill a month’s worth of time with activities between Jericho beach and the Sea to Sky that weren’t the run-of-the-mill Vancouver attractions, what would I recommend? (I love you, Blodel Conservatory, but newcomers don’t need more prompting to head up to Queen E.)
With that in mind, here’s a chronological list of my experiences from the month of March that prove Vancouver isn’t just not dead, but is in fact a lively and vibrant city.
Village Studios
The best place in Vancouver to listen to electronic music, Village Studios a bit of a hidden gem. From my dental technician to my orthotist, the lay Vancouverite doesn’t seem to known about the club directly underneath Celebrities equipped with a Funktion-One sound system that is home to some of the city’s best out-of-town talent, tasteful lighting, and cultured crowds.
Speedhouse producer CHYL started the month off strong with a sold-out crowd and the highest-energy set I’d seen in Vancouver in a long time. Two weeks later, Simula got off his couch and flew over to Canada to tear into a crowd of 30-40 of the most gourmet DnB consumers this side of the UK, followed the next night by another sold-out DnB broadcast courtesy of genre legend Friction (special shoutout to Dirt Monkey, who Owen only realized was on after he’d been playing for 30 minutes). Finally, One True God hypnotized a crowd (including me who was rocking one hour of sleep and a 20 minute nap at UBC’s Asian Library) into a very solid night of mid-tempo music.
TLDR: Four wildly different genres attracting crowds of a variety of sizes and genres, all housed under one amazingly low-ceilling’ed venue.
Biking to Texx Big Burger
The day after CHYL, I woke up at noon craving the kind of greasy burger worth of a hangover cure. I messaged my friend Justin with two words, “Big Texx?“. A few minutes later, he typed back, “Let’s do it”.
This burger joint near Surrey Central Station is well known to most lower-mainland residents except for those who actually live in Vancouver (I’ve found that most people beyond their mid-20s living in the city proper are pained to drive anywhere more than 20 minutes from downtown). I’d say the closest equivalent is Five Guys, but Texx Big Burger steals the spotlight with its metric-fuckton of fries (two hungry lads can finish a small easily), bottomless soda (Justin and I are both verse we technically qualified), and excellent burger (‘nuff said).
Before I could reconsider how much I’d drank the previous night, I threw on my rain jacket and set off on my bike to Surrey. As always, I felt completely safe rolling along Vancouver’s world-class network of bike paths - even on a highway and the side of a bridge. The last twenty minutes of the 1.5 hour ride was a struggle, but the idea of the impending religious burger experience kept me pedaling until, dirty and drenched, I finally arrived.
10/10, would recommend, especially if you’re visiting the Surrey Hive (which, kudos to Justin, he did directly after).
St. Patrick’s Day Ceilidh
I’ve never gone out for St. Patrick’s day in the past (I’m not that white person), however, when a friend from my climbing group encouraged us to buy tickets to Blackthorn’s CelticFest Ceilidh, I channelled my matra of “Say Yes to Everything”. Her being a certified grandmaster Scottish fiddler and dance instructor definitely helped sell the event’s legitimacy.
Pronounced “kaylee”, a ceilidh is a traditional celtic (Scottish/Irish) social event combining dancing, performances, and lots and lots of music. I did a little googling beforehand, and was surprised at how dressed-up the people in the photos were, so I scavenged through my dad’s closet to find a nice white dress shirt and a vest.
As we age, there are fewer and fewer completely new experiences in life - experiences where you have no idea what to expect, and are completely blown away by the result. This was one of those moments. For three hours, me, my friends, and a hall full of Celtic-loving Vancouverites danced, clapped, cheered, and laughed along to instructed dances and spirited live performances. After dancing in a circle with more strangers than I could keep track of, I understood what COVID had taken away from so many communities, and what was slowly starting to return in cities around the world. Biking home that night, I felt so grateful to my friends who’d pulled me out to such a fabulous experience.
V2 House
Through last year’s interviews with the Cansbridge Fellowship, I became involved with V2 House, Vancouver’s third space for young, ambitious builders. Founded by the inspiring community builder Scott Langille, this collective’s most popular event is Atelier (part of the Socratica network), a time for folks to come to V2’s house and work on personal projects (no work or school allowed). While attending as many of their weekly Tuesday sessions as I could, I spent several hours completing my blog post on Sprawl Repair and got energized by the multitude of awesome people and meaningful projects demo’ed at the end of each session.
V2’s mission is to show that Vancouver is a great place to create art, tech, and everything in between - a vision which truly resonates with me as a lover of this city. During V2’s Dinner Stories: Resilience, I got a chance to chat with Joel Hansen, a Langley-born entrepreneur based out of Bowen Island, about this city’s “dreamability” and picked his brain about why he stayed in the Lower Mainland and supports Canadian startups through LOI.
Why Here?
One of the first questions Joel asked me when we started talking about Vancouver was, “Why do you love this city”? I’d encourage everyone reading this post to think about three sentances describing why they love wherever they live.
Spaces like V2 House serve as the gathering place for people who love Vancouver and want to channel their committed energy into making the city a better place and are one of the reasons I have so much hope for this city’s future.
Progression Bouldering
This month I was unfortunately too busy to leave the familiar confines of UBC’s Birdcoop bouldering cave and venture out to Vancouver’s bouldering gyms. Fortunately, my friend Justin did, and was kind enough to write a review of Vancouver’s newest bouldering gym, Progression, for this post.
“The route setting at progression is definitely more comp style; very technical compared to the HIVE so maybe not too beginner friendly. However, I think the main selling point is the new facilities. The overall atmosphere is more modern and inviting compared to the HIVE’s locations, with lots of natural lighting from the windows, individual changing rooms with showers, and most of all the fact that the space isn’t some dark stuffy warehouse. The integrated café also makes the gym feel more like a hangout-and-study spot that I could chill in for hours. In fact, I’m considering switching my membership over to Progression when I’m back in school at UBC because of how accessible the gym is via the 99 bus (then I’d be studying in between climbs!). It’s slightly more expensive, but it actually feels worth the price, whereas with the hive, it felt like I just wasn’t getting full value for my money. Overall, Progression is a great addition to the Vancouver climbing scene.”
Reel Rock
If I’d written this post in April, I’d include the crags around Squamish as a top destination - however, since the March weather this year was actually normal for once (read: wet), I’ll include the next-best thing.
Reel Rock is an annual North American film festival showcasing some of the most unique climbing movies of the year. Stopping off at the Rio in Vancouver for two days, this year’s festival showcased three films: Death of Villains, Riders on the Storm, and The Cobra and the Heart. The first film had a well-produced story, the second was side-splittingly funny in the way only three Europeans trapped in their portaledges in Patagonia can be, and the third was a breathtaking portrait of three incredibly strong and fearless individuals that make up one family unit, and is centered around a legendary 5.15 crack climb in Squamish.
Watching the three films with a group of my buddies and a packed theatre full of boulderers, Squamish residents, and a few dirtbags (trad rack included), I felt inspired to climb more, and thankful to live a couple hours drive from a world class climbing destination.
