West Vancouver keeps the beach in reach

Capilano River flows to the Burrard Inlet

The Lions Gate Bridge and Stanley Park

If you like the feel of sand in your toes, the ocean wind on your face, and the smells of seaweed and sunscreen, then you won't want to miss a visit to these wonderful water front parks in West Vancouver. I recently checked out a very accessible stretch of beachfront trail stretching from where the Capilano River flows into the Burrard Inlet and travelling west along the north shore of English Bay to what was Vancouver's first cottage getaway, Dundarave Village.

There are a few ways to connect with Ambleside Park where the trail begins. This stretch of trail in Ambleside is paved and runs 1.2 km along sandy beach shoreline from the railway bridge crossing at the Capilano River mouth to 13th St. You can find accessible parking throughout this 24 hectare park. There is a par 3 accessible golf course; however, the clubhouse has no accessible washrooms. Throughout the park there are natural and artificial turf playing fields, BBQs, pavilions, picnic tables, very accessible washrooms with automatic doors, and an accessible beach area. Unfortunately this park and the others I traversed on this trip are not as accessible when it comes to children's play areas. They have many barriers and no adaptive equipment.

Accessible beach

As usual I rely on transit to make my way http://www.translink.ca/ . If you are driving, head west from the Lions Gate Bridge and find the park two blocks back of Marine Drive. You can also park in the Park Royal mall's far south west parking lot near Taylor Way and walk approximately 500 meters towards the ocean to meet the Capilino Pacific Trail head. The route I am taking heads west from there. In a future post I hope to travel sections of the Capilino Pacific Trail as it runs from Capilano Lake in Mount Seymour  following the river on its 6 km journey to the sea. The trail  I travel on today consists of  pavement, boardwalk, and packed gravel.

The way to Dundarave passes through several parks, beaches and grass areas, and includes the Centennial Sea Walk. Along the way there are numerous places to sit, shade areas, fields, beaches, piers and boardwalks.  Washrooms are frequent and fantastically accessible with automatic doors. The three major parks along the way are Ambleside, John Lawson and Dundarave.

Boardwalk wheel chair beach access points were provided consistently along the way. The route could use more way finding with information on the distances to the next park, etc. The next stop after a brief journey along Belvue Ave to the foot of 17th St brings me to John Lawson Park. This area of Belvue Ave is a hub of artist studios, music and theatre. It also hosts a farmer's market on the first Sunday of each month with a second Sunday the following week added in the month of August. The park itself offers accessible pathways, more great washrooms, picnic area, BBQs, small pavilion, swimming beach and fishing pier.

Crabbing is the most popular  form of fishing off of this pier and the District of West Vancouver has even provided a bait chopping area replete with a sink. If you decide to cast your net, don't forget to get a licence from the DFO (See post "Surrey's Green Timbers Park has reel allure" ) and be sure to follow the catch yield rules.

Just after John Lawson is a beachfront boardwalk and hard pack gravelly stretch with more art studios. If you want to avoid the bumps (I think most chair users won't be unduly uncomfortable with these) on this path, return to the park entrance at Bellvue Ave and the foot of 17th St which is the beginning of the Centennial Sea Walk. 

The Sea Walk Garden at the foot of 19th St is a beautiful little nook just off the pathway. You can find little quiet areas to listen to the babble of Lawson's Stream as it trickles to the vast Pacific Ocean. The stream is an important salmon and trout habitat. If you have the time and can resist the distracting views of English Bay and passing water craft from around the globe heading to the Port of Vancouver, stop and play a game of chess .

The home stretch, assuming you don't need to turn around and head back to your car, is the beginning of the Centennial Sea Walk. Although this beautifully flat paved pathway travels for 1.7 km, once you are on it in your chair, the only way off is forward or back due to the rising ground just north of this man-made seawall. In fact, at Dundarave there will be a fairly steep exit to parking lots or buses.

The Centennial Walk was opened in 1968 to commemorate Canada's 100th birthday and offers beautiful views of  Vancouver from Stanley Park to UBC. Lots of little shade rest areas, art, benches, and star sightings make this trip seem a short one.

 Dundarave Park has both a pier and a fantastic accessible beach walk. There is parking and the best vehicle access would be at the foot of 25th St. You can also find parking along both sides of the rail tracks along Bellvue Ave. The park has an accessible gazebo, more of those washrooms with the automatic doors, and a concession stand that offers unusual but delicious fare for a beach side concession: Triple A organically certified Alberta beef.

Wheelchair boardwalk to the high tide level

Dundarave Pier

The Village of Dundarave has historic roots and was named by Rusell Macnaughten, a professor of Greek at UBC in the early 1900s, as homage to the famous Scottish castle. The irony was not likely lost on him that the Gaelic word translates to "two oars in the water".  Before the construction of the Lions Gate Bridge in 1939 and a connecting main road to Marine Drive in 1913, Vancouver's gentry would row over from English Bay's south side.

The Beach House at Dundarave pier: yummy

Lovely beach

View from the end of the pier

The higher up the bigger the king

Uphill from Dundarave Park is the town centre. Along Marine Way you will find a quaint shopping district with speciality food and wine stores. On Saturdays from April to October, check out the farmer's market. Don't be surprised to bump into Bono, Robin Williams, or permanent residents Sarah McLaughlin, Anne Heche, Goldie Hawn, and Kurt Russell, for if Vancouver is Hollywood North, West Vancouver is its Beverly Hills.

Steveston: a look through fishstory

The old Interurban terminus

In my last post on Quilchina I wrote of the old Interurban train line that went from Vancouver to Steveston. This week AccessEco BC travels to the end of that line to Richmond's historic Steveston Village. William Steves purchased the land, originally a dairy farm area, in 1890 in hopes of developing a rival to the newly emerging Port of Vancouver.

Although his dream never quite developed, today we are left with a quaint little part of Richmond, BC that is steeped in history, filled with shops and restaurants and stunning views of the Gulf of Georgia, and is very accessible to boot. Half the fun of visiting is discovering the amazing amount of heritage that has been preserved.

A wind propelled dune buggy zips past
an old ice house

The wind at Garry Point Park is consistently strong

Garry Point Park is part of Richmond's West Dyke Trail (see post " Hiking the dyke along an island ocean estuary").  Although it's not technically part of Stevestston Village, it's so close that I have always included it in my visits. The park was built with dredging material from Texada Island and is a real oasis of birds, views, wildflowers, beaches, benches, art, picnic tables and more. The park entrance is at the border of the historic section of Steveston Village. The park's entrance has a very accessible washroom and a concession featuring fresh delicious seafood, barista coffee and ice cream.  As you munch, check out the map to Steveston Village which is also near the park's entrance.

Hard packed trails along the beach

Lots of places to nap with an ocean breeze
among the wildflowers

A short trip along the well marked  and mapped trail westward will lead you towards the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, one of Canada's National Historic Treasures and as such a federal government responsibility in conjunction with the non-profit Gulf Of Georgia Cannery Society. The cannery has been rated 4.5 on a scale of 5 rating from Access Richmond and is proud that their interactive museum includes historic walking tours of the village. For more on the cannery go to www.gulfofgeorgiacannery.com.  To see the very useful Access Richmond web site go to www.accessrichmond.ca.

Comfortable boardwalk

I like to call the next section of boardwalk the miracle mile. In my post on Granville Island ("The island that time forgot"), I wrote of the uncomfortable railway tie boardwalk along Granville Island's perimeter. This prompted a friend, fellow bloglidite and disability advisory committee chair of the external access committee, Jeanette Anderson, to raise the issue. She was provided an email stating that the engineers who looked into it could not build the walk so the ties were elongated. Apparently Richmond has solved this vexing problem to create just such a boardwalk.

Whale and wildlife watching tours

Still lots of commercial fishing

Mats and rails at the government docks make it accessible

In the village area itself most shops and restaurants offer at least some form of access. There are not many assisted cross ways in the village; however, as the Community of Steveston grows, more in the way proper cross walks are being implemented by the City of Richmond. The Richmond city council has really seemed to buy into the the culture of accessibility that accompanied their hosting of the 2010 winter Olympic games. I noticed the latest upgrade to the Steveston Village included a cross way with all the latest in crossing assistance, and it looked like more upgrades the area are on the way. Curb cuts and accessible washrooms can be found throughout the village. Parking to this busy pedestrian-oriented tourist favorite is not easy to find, but when and where you find it you will also see designated disability parking. As usual I chose transit www.translink.ca. If you like to cook, be sure and buy fresh seafood right off the boats. I checked with the boat tours and here are some good things to know. The tour boats are not specifically built to accommodate disabilities and it is best for individuals to check with them before booking. They cannot always guarantee whale sightings, but when whales are in the area, they do post a guarantee which you can see before buying your ticket. To contact attractions shops go to www.steveston.bc.ca. The Steveston Village Community Centre has the most accessible and integrated children's play area and water park I have ever seen. For details go to www.richmond.ca/parksrec/centres/stevestoncentre/steveston.htm.

Heading east along the Fraser  River is Steveston's newest section of boardwalk along the old cannery row  This section is a mix of cement and rail tie and is very accessible. It travels along the former sites of three canneries on the way to the historic Britannia Shipyards.

Lots of great photo ops

Britannia Shipyards

For information on the shipyard
go to www.britannia-hss.ca/

Steveston is a great place to spend the day or just a few hours, and is well worth the trip. On the weekend of August 5 through 7 is Steveston's Maritime Festival, a fun family event. For details go to www.venturevancouver.com/blog/richmond-maritime-festival-august-5-to-7-2011   Until next time, when I go ambling along West Vancouver's Ambleside Park.

Disc golf at Quilchina Park a rough experience

Tee off

Hard core disc golfers

In my blog post "Queen Elizabeth Park wears the crown of accessibility", I wrote about the pleasure I had in meeting a group of disc golfers who are every bit as compulsive and serious as their ballsy cousins. The game is similar to golf and has a strict set of rules and code of conduct governed by the Disc Golf Association. My new friends were very accommodating and even gave me what I would need to get started: a driving and putting disc. The putter resembles a frisbee and floats as you throw. The driver is more like an Olympic discus built for distance. There are several other disc types permitted for play: left flyers, right flyers, tree dislodgers, rollers and more. Queen Elizabeth course is long, hilly, has water hazards and lacks pathways around the course.

My new buds suggested I try the Quilchina Park course as it was a shorter 9 basket (played as 18) with a perimeter path making for less travel over grass. So this week, inspired by the PGA Canadian Open event at the nearby Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club, I headed out to this west side city park to partake in a game of cheaper and less formal disc golf.  The views from Arbutus Ridge are stunning and you can see out to English Bay and beyond. Strict zoning laws in the prestigious Shaughnessy, Quilchina, Arbutus and Point Grey neighborhoods have preserved the view not as a corridor but as a complete panorama.

Quilchina is a First Nations word loosely translated as "many waters".  Originally a marsh area, even though it sits high above sea level, the land was home to the Squamish Nation but was given to the Canadian Pacific Railway by the Canadian Parliament as part of a 2,100 hectare parcel in 1888. The CPR used some of the land to develop the inter urban rail line, completed in 1905, to connect what is now Vancouver with Steveston. The rail line had stops higher up the Dunbar ridge in Quilchina at what is now West 37 Ave and West 41 Ave and ended in the Dunbar community.  The neighborhood was originally part of the municipality of South Vancouver when the inter urban line was completed in 1906. At that time only a few rich railroad brass lived in the area. Quilchina joined Vancouver in 1912 . The  area boomed until the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the 1950s the city used sand from the dredging of False Creek to fill in the boggy areas of Quilchena in order to build housing and schools for the post war baby boom. This plan also resulted in the end of the inter urban railroad line when it was replaced with trolley buses.

The neighborhood's main arteries are very accessible, but the side streets are not.  Curb cuts are patchy causing frequent long turn arounds, and cross ways across busy streets have nothing in the way of assistance.  I took the bus but I do not recommend bus travel to this location. Stops along the #33 and  # 25 buses leave a long scary trip to get to the park's one accessible entrance at North Valley Drive and West 33rd Ave. There is no parking lot and you must try your luck with side street parking.  However, the entrance does have a crosswalk and curb cuts.

You want to be in fairly limber condition before you tackle this park. It has a skateboard parkl, baseball and soccer fields, and a playground that is as inaccessible as the rest of it. The washrooms are marked accessible but by universal standards they are not as they have cramped space and very tight turns.

This off leash park is better left to the dogs

As my disc golf friends had promised, I did find the golf course and accessible perimeter path. But the day went to a complete waste thanks to the new City of Vancouver initiative to cut back on lawn care. This new practice is a hazard to the mobility and visually impaired. Dangerous dips and stumps, etc make any field a mine field. Even for my 4 wheel chair the grass proved challenging.

Hidden treasures from dogs and worse

I plan to raise this issue at the city's next Disability Advisory Committee meeting in September and will keep you posted. As far as disc golf is concerned, I hope to get back to it and will try other courses in the future. For a list of courses and to learn about the rules and how to organize tournaments, etc go to www.bcdss.bc.ca.

For information on the park or to contact the Parks Board and complain go to www.vancouver.ca/parks.

North shore's Lower Lonsdale area is flat out fun

A montage of the 20.000 workers during WW2 who built 53%
of our wartime cargo ships

Making the north shore accessible is an up hill or, up mountain actually, battle. The steep inclines that start at sea level and rise to 1,231 metres at the tip of Grouse Mountain can be difficult to impossible for the mobility challenged. Some areas are very accessible and some are not.  AccesssEco Bc will visit several areas including the top of Grouse Mountain over time. On my last visit to North Vancouver I checked out the Lonsdale Quay (see post "Going north - shore that is, swimmin' pools, movie stars").  This visit is to the Waterfront Area to the east and west of the market.  As most of this area is at or near sea level, the flatter area is ideal for the mobility challenged. The Lower Lonsdale area on the whole offers great cross ways with auditory features, excellent curb cuts, and ramp access from the Esplanade to the Quay roof and on to the market and hotel.  My preferred method of travel to this central location on the north shore continues to be sea bus http://www.translink.ca/

Lots of places to sip a latte

On Saturdays there are a couple of farmers markets in the area

Rolling past the market I head east to the revamped and still to be completed historic shipyard district at the base of  Londsdale Ave. Although not yet finished, it is already one of my favorite spots in the lower mainland. This area is a showcase of the fascinating history surrounding what was North Vancouver's second largest industry: ship building. The Wallace ship yard was originally west of these grounds further up the Burrard Inlet. However, in 1906, soon after the City of North Vancouver acquired electricity, the shipyard moved to the foot of Lonsdale. You can take a riveting 45 minute tour of the area for free. The tour is wheelchair accessible and can accommodate groups. For information go to www.northvanmuseum.ca/program4.htm.

The grounds are very accessible

From the 700 ft Burrard dry dock pier looking toward North Van

Ship building continues today

I can't wait to see what the completed historic shipyard district will look like when it's completed.  Use the Pinnacle Hotel's accessible washrooms and elevators to Esplanade. I noticed the installation of a new and modern accessible elevator almost completed on east side park exit. Hopefully when it's finished the site will include cross ways, marked pedestrian paths, and way finding with even more tactile clues for the visually impaired.

The east exit elevator looks nearly complete

If you head to the west side of the market, you will come across Waterfront Park. This 2.5 hectare park is divided by railway track and thus has a south side on the water front and a north side entering off Esplanade. In the park you can choose to use the street or a pedestrian overpass to get to each section. The north side is more of a field used for many community events including Caribbean Days.

The south side is the seawall section and where you will find great vistas of Vancouver's city scape, accessible washrooms, the Mariners Memorial, the Trans Canada Trail Aboriginal theme pavilion, and BCIT's waterfront campus.

Park pier looking to Vancouver

Mariner's Memorial for those lost at sea

Trans Canada Trail Aboriginal theme pavilion

BCIT docks

The park has a children's play area which is not very accessible. It does have good cement paths in the south side as well as along the sea wall. The south side is where you will find accessible washrooms and lots of places to sit.

Just beyond the BCIT campus at the park's far west exit is the Spirit Trail. I was aware of this section of pathway on the south tip of the Squamish Nation Reserve, but I bumped into a friend on the trail who told me eventually the path will offer an uninterrupted route to Horseshoe Bay. He has also told me that he has tried most of the sections that are open and they are great for his wheelchair.

Thanks for the tip

The Spirit Trail entrance just beyond the BCIT campus

For more information on Waterfront Park , North Vancouver and the Spirit Trail go to http://www.cnv.org/