2017 - June 16 & 17th - Alaska Cruise and Vancouver BC

Friday June 16th was our final day of the Princess Cruise two-week Alaskan Land and Sea Cruise. We Left Ketchikan and throughout Thursday night sailed south through the Tongass Narrows. We left the waters of Alaska behind us and headed out into the more open waters of the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. This complete day at sea on Friday was enjoyable cruising the waters down the coast of the Inside Passage enjoying the beauty of a thousand islands, fjords, and lush island scenery. The Inside Passage weaves along thousands of Pacific Coast islands that are heavily forested, with the Coastal Mountains visible to the east. We passed Pine Island, Cape Caution, Johnstone Strait, Seymour Narrows, the Georgia Strait and Vancouver Island.

Waking Saturday morning, we were welcomed to Vancouver as we opened our eyes and went on our stateroom balcony and looked over the sprawling city in British Columbia, Canada. The mountains provide a beautiful backdrop for the skyline of the city. Tugboats scurried next to the Star Princess with various tasks being completed. We looked at all of the buildings on shore and couldn't help but take note of the Harbour Centre office building with it's circular top. This is the tallest office building in Vancouver at 481 feet tall. We debarked our ship and grabbed a cab to our booked hotel in downtown Vancouver. We had decided to add an extra day here in Vancouver at the end of the trip just as we had added an extra day in Fairbanks to begin the trip. We knew that we wanted to take the opportunity of seeing something of Vancouver while being here rather than just get off of the ship and onto an airplane. Who knows when and if we will be here again. After checking in the hotel and getting a bite to eat, we took a cab to Stanley Park. We thought that this would be a fun excursion for the remainder of our day. Stanley park is Vancouver's first park, all 1001 acres, with its ever-blooming gardens, pristine coastal areas and roughly 500,000 cedar, fir and hemlock trees. Stanley Park is surrounded by waters of Vancouver Harbour and English Bay and has continued to live up to its "greenspace" designation for almost 130 years providing a tranquil oasis as the perfect city escape. Through our research we had decided that we wanted to explore the park aboard one of the old-fashioned horse-drawn vehicles and meander in comfort through the natural beauty of Stanley Park. We had a professional guide transplanted from Australia that fully narrated the tour which highlights Deadman's Island, Vancouver's Harbour, Lions Gate Bridge, a Coastal Red Cedar Forest, and includes stops at the Totem Poles, the Girl in a Wet Suit Statue, the S.S. Empress of Japan Figurehead, and the Rose Garden.
Pam had an immediate attraction to the dapple-gray Yorkshire horse Purdy. Our team of Scout and Purdy pulled us around the circle route to see all of the highlights of the tour.

Starting out on our tour we head towards Brockton Pavilion and the Totem Poles. We passed the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club in English Bay. Another old an historic site in Stanley Park is the Royal Canadian Navy Yard. We saw the Japanese-Canadian War Memorial Monument located on the south side of the Lumbermens' Arch Picnic Area.

And the picnic area lies behind the Lumbermen's Arch which was erected in 1952 to honor British Columbia's lumber industry. From the horse-drawn carriage we could see Downtown Vancouver with the Vancouver Convention Center in the front sporting the largest living roof in Canada and the largest non-industrial green roof in North America. Our driver pulled up at the Brockton Point Totem Park in Stanley Park to give us all the opportunity to get off and explore all of the Totems. The Indian Totem Poles are "The Coat of Arms" for the British Columbia Indians.

Continuing on from the Totems, we approach Brockton Oval, a sport field, where Cricket and Rugby are still played. The Brockton Pavilion is a social hall for many uses. Across the bay in North Vancouver we see hill piles of Yellow Sulfur produced as a byproduct at Suncor's tar sands facilities in Alberta. Sulfur is transported by rail to a 25 meter high, 160 000 ton outdoor stockpile here at the North Vancouver Sulfur Works. From there it is shipped to markets in Asia for use in manufacturing fertilizer. In the past ten years the price of sulfur has skyrocketed from $20/ton to over $650/ton. Still on the waterfront, we take a short break to view a Girl in a Wetsuit, the bronze sculpture depicting a friend in a wetsuit with flippers on her feet and a mask on her forehead. Although some believe “A Girl In A Wetsuit” was a replica of Copenhagen's The Little Mermaid, the creator Elek Imredy stated: “I didn't believe we should have a copy of the mermaid. She is rightfully a symbol of Copenhagen... I proposed to have a life-size scuba diver seated there. At that time scuba diving was getting quite popular here in Vancouver and, just as important, I didn't know of any similar sculpture anywhere in the world. It was a new idea… There was tremendous opposition and great controversy. I still don't know why”.

  Whenever in Canada and there are some Canadian Geese in the water, a picture had to be taken!

Continuing down the shoreline a little, we pass the SS Empress of Japan, a replica of a ship's figurehead that sailed to the Orient from 1891-1922. As we continue to round the waterfront, we spot the Lions Gate Bridge - a suspension bridge that crosses the first narrows of Burrard Inlet and connects the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the North Shore municipalities of the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver. The term "Lions Gate" refers to The Lions, a pair of mountain peaks north of Vancouver. We had a nice soothing slow segment being drawn through the majestic cedar, fir and hemlock trees of Stanley Park.

Throughout Stanley Park we saw many beautiful gardens. And then we came to the beautiful Rose Garden in full bloom ...

Before arriving back at the start of our tour, we saw the Robert Burnes famed Scottish poet statue.

And a little further behind was the Lord Stanley statue who was the Governor General of Canada (Queen's representative) in 1888 and for whom the park is named.

And finishing up the tour we saw the commemorate memorial to Queen Victoria's death.

We saw and learned a lot and were able to enjoy a least a little part of Vancouver! We had a nice meal at the hotel restaurant before retiring for the night. We were so happy that we went to Stanley Park on Saturday afternoon when we had the time and the weather was good, as on Sunday it was a rainy day ... just the kind of weather to go to the airport for our flight to Long Beach. These two weeks were truly enchanting, fun and filled with new memories for each of us. Again, the captioned album for this blog is at this hyperlink.