I am escaping the city this weekend for one of my favourite place to relax – Salt Spring Island. A hop across Georgia Straight, it takes me back to my island roots (I grew up in Nanaimo).

Every time I go, which is about six or seven times a year, I pop in on the Saturday Market in Ganges, the epicentre of Salt Spring Island. Lined with booths selling locally-made products ranging from soaps and fudge to jewellery and fresh herbs, the market is a great place to wander through the crowds, meet locals, listen to great tunes and lounge in the nearby park. I never fail to stock up on drool-worthy soaps, goat cheese and olive tapenade. Of course, the soaps only smell good enough to eat.

Having endured hundreds of ferry rides over the years, I am a bit jaded by the irritatingly inconvenient ferry schedule to get to and fro, but the beauty of the Straight, Active Pass, the lighthouse at the northern tip of Mayne Island, the possibility of spotting whales, eagles and seals, all make the trip worthwhile.

If you can afford it, hop on a floatplane from downtown Vancouver and arrive at the foot of the market in style. The quick trip only takes about 35 minutes from take-off to landing compared to the two to three hours by ferry. On a sunny day, there really is nothing more breathtaking than the west coast from high above the land and sea.

A few great places to stay include the Salt Spring Inn or Hastings House or find a rental accommodation or campsite around St. Mary’s Lake. There are also fistfuls of B&B’s to choose from. Gracious and laid back, the island folk are lovely hosts, although they do complain behind your back at the sheer number of tourists that unleash their vacationing fury upon the island each summer. Its one of those can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em situations.

Here are a couple of photos I took last year from a Salt Spring Air floatplane trip from Coal Harbour, Vancouver to Ganges Harbour.

Anytime the John Butler Trio is even remotely close to Vancouver, I have tickets. Including Sunday’s sold-out show at the Commodore Ballroom, I have seen him fives times in under three years.

The latest tour by the Australian-based band follows the release of a new album, April Uprising that introduced two new band members. Former drummer Michael Barker and bassist Shannon Birchall bid adieu last year due to “creative differences”. (Whatever that means.) And I have to say I was really, really, sorry to see them go. Maybe even sorrier than the day John hacked off his 10-year-old dreads. The new trio is keeping it in the family with drummer Nicky Bomba (John’s brother-in-law) and bassist Byron Luiters. Bomba was also previously part of the trio as the recording drummer for Sunrise Over Sea.

I am happy to report that despite the new faces, it is still relatively the same John Butler Trio. The new music is a bit edgier, but distinctly grounded in roots and blues and for the live show, the band made its way through a pretty even split of new and old songs.

If you haven’t heard of these guys, seriously check them out. A highlight of any JBT show is his live version of Ocean, an instrumental guitar solo, that lasts anywhere from five to sixteen minutes and shows off his incredible finger-picking.

Never one to disappoint, John led the guys through 18 songs including a three-song encore. Most of the patrons in the Commodore were on their feet jigging and singing their hearts out for the whole set, and I am pretty sure I even busted security dancing through the masses a few times.

The John Butler Trio played two sold-out shows at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on Saturday, May 29 and Sunday, May 30.

Photographs by Simon Kear.

May Long Weekend is not the official start of the summer, but for many, this three-day weekend is the first chance of the year to get into the great outdoors and at least pretend its summer. Quite often it all works out, the sun shines and girls are happy because they can dust off their summer clothes and guys are happy because the girls are dusting off the small pieces of material they refer to as summer clothes. It is a win-win weekend for everyone.

This year, it rained. There were no summer clothes. It was more like March.

I spent the Long Weekend at Crystal Cove Beach Resort on Vancouver Island’s west coast (or as it is so aptly nicknamed the “wet” coast) with my guy, my sister and her man. Despite growing up in Nanaimo, I hadn’t been to that side of the island in over ten years and I was really looking forward to it. Not wanting to fork out a bunch of money for summer rates on the holiday weekend, but not really wanting to spend the whole time in a tent either, our group of five (counting the dog) borrowed an RV and drove up island like a bunch of senior citizens.

It was a great trip down memory lane, as we stopped at all the same places that my family used to stop at on the way out to the coast – Whiskey Creek for ice cream, Cameron Lake, J & L’s Drive-In in Port Alberni (because my name is Jenn and my sister’s is Laura), the river potholes and Kennedy Lake (which many people mistake for the ocean).

Since it was my New Zealand boyfriend’s first time out there, we stopped long enough at Wickanninish Park to run down to the beach and dance around in the middle of a bloody sandstorm, before checking into our RV spot at Crystal Cove on McKenzie Beach (just a couple minutes from the town of Tofino). The campsite was awesome – full power hook-up, large private sites, clean (although slightly stinky) bathrooms with showers and laundry and a crab truck selling fresh local crab every day at 4:00 sharp. Though, if you can afford it, the cabins available to rent were pretty mesmerizing with smoke curling up out of their chimneys atop beautiful stained logs.

We spent the weekend hiking, walking along the beach, playing with the endless dogs that were also enjoying the beach, cycling into town on the separate bike paths, playing bocce in the sand and gawking at all the bald eagles. In all my years on the island I never saw as many, as close, as I did that weekend.

The west coast of the island is one of those places that is perfect rain or shine. In a way it is almost better to go when it is crappy because the water is hardly any warmer in the summer and the waves are much more awesome to watch when it is wicked out! It certainly did pour on our last night out there, but there is nothing better than falling asleep to the sound of a torrential downpour on a tin roof overhead.

I have tossed around the idea of investing in lotto tickets but I would rather invest in a daily dark cherry mocha. I get more instant gratification.

Anyways, my goal is to get back to writing on here about my loveable hometown because it’s a peach! Life here really isn’t that bad, even when suffering from “work”.

Things, things and more things!

There are a lot of cool things on the horizon. A mangle of post-its are shoved into my little agenda notebook, waiting to be transferred to the calendar and then kindly recycled.

There are road trips in the works to Long Beach, Portland, Victoria, Seattle and San Fran. There are camping trips to be sorted out. There are bike ride pub crawls to enjoy. There are babies to be had (not mine – just the gazillion people I have to buy presents for), friends to visit and many more to meet. There are high school reunions to skip, books to read and beer festivals to enjoy.

I think just writing this has cured me! Bring on the summer folks. Seriously! Stick around and enjoy the summer with me. Thanks for those who continue to read and for those who begin reading at their own risk. I welcome you.

Wandering the streets of Vancouver in celebration of Canada's Gold Medal in Men's Hockey.

It has been seventeen days straight of excitement, madness, spending, gorging, drinking and screaming for Vancouver. The 2010 Winter Olympic Games are over. For some this is a non-issue. For thousands it is a close to an event that brought some of the most memorable Canadian pride-filled moments in recent history.

Never before have I witnessed Canadian pride like this in my hometown. Out here on the west coast, we are far removed from the nation’s centre of the universe, where July 1^st Canada Day parties run rampant and cities spend hordes on breathtaking celebrations of the red and white kind. The Vancouver Olympics Games were seventeen days worth of July firsts. And now, we have to go back to work.

Canadian flag caught on screen at Yaletown LiveCity.

For those that embraced this cross-country party, there was a little emptiness felt when the Olympic flame was distinguished during the closing ceremonies as our homegrown boy Neil Young sang Long May You Run. The red and white, the camaraderie, the revelry and festivity will be missed.

It felt good to come together and focus on joy; to let our worries slip away. But now it is back to reality and the daily grind. The bills, debts, problems, issues, complaints, grumbles and grieves of our daily lives.

This isn’t the kind of hangover cured with Tylenol. This is more like a hot-air balloon deflating.

So what do we do now?

Well, we recover.

Celebrating the Olympic Gold Medal Men's Hockey Win - 2010

And then hopefully we get off our butts and maintain some engagement in our city and in our country. We don’t need a million dollar excuse to walk from one end of town to the other, to start conversations with people next to us in line or on the bus, to have a good laugh alongside complete strangers. We don’t need an organizing committee to convince us to get involved, hold our hands and lead us to events.

The real legacy of the Games will be a city that grows up, takes charge and keeps the stick out of its you know what. So here is to a speedy recovery and a Vancouver that is wiser, livelier, freer, more sociable and proudly Canadian.

In the meantime, here are some random things to do this month now that your calendar is freed up:

Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games; March 12 – 21, 2010

Vancouver International Dance Festival; March 12 – 21, 2010

Photographs by Ansel Adams and Leonard Frank; Through to March 13, 2010

21^st Century Flea Market; March 14, 2010

2010 Vancouver Wine and Beer Fest; March 26^th, 2010

Earth Hour; March 27^th at 8:30pm

Free Bombardier train from Granville Island to Athletes' Village

If you missed out on Olympic activities, some things are staying open through the Paralympic Games such as:

 BC Pavilion (Vancouver Art Gallery)

Bombardier Streetcar

Canada Pavilion

GE Plaza at Robson Square

Ziptrek Vancouver

Canada’s Northern House

CentrePlace Manitoba

LiveCity Downtown

Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion

City Caucus seems to be the best place to keep updated on these Olympic and Paralympic-related activities.

Starting earlier this month I picked up a gig blogging for Beyond Robson, a Vancouver city happenings kind of site. There are some great writers there and if you are unfamiliar with it, check it out!

In the meantime, here are some links to my latest Olympic-related posts on Beyond Robson.

What the EH is Canadian food?; Beyond Robson – Feb 23, 2010

LiveCity Yaletown Hosts Free Nightly Olympic Concerts; Beyond Robson – Feb 17, 2010

The Vancouver Poverty Olympics; Beyond Robson – Feb 8, 2010

The House of Switzerland; Beyond Robson – Feb 8, 2010

2010 Olympics Inspire Wave of Vancouver Books; Beyond Robson – Feb 5,

Happy readings and enjoy the men’s hockey semi-final tonight, 6pm against Slovakia!!!

From Mathew Good

The What Ifs…

“What could we have done with all that money? Well….

Healthcare: The cost of the Olympics could have funded the construction of 6 state of the art hospitals to replace St. Paul’s.

Seismic Upgrades For Schools At Risk: The cost of the Olympics could have funded the entire budget of the seismic-upgrading program four times over for schools in British Columbia. As it stands now, only 32 out of hundreds of elementary and secondary schools have been upgraded as of last year.
 

Education: The cost of the Olympics could cover the four-year tuition fees of 345,383 UBC arts students – or 314,004 UBC science students – or 287,853 UBC engineering students – or 100,963 UBC medical students.
The cost of the Olympics could pay the salaries of UBC’s 587 full professors for 73 years.
The cost of the Olympics could cover the cost of educating every elementary and secondary student in the Province for roughly a year and a half.
 

Government: The cost of the Olympics could fund the Premier’s office for 500 years.
The cost of the Olympics could have paid the entire public service payroll of British Columbia for 2 years.
The cost of the Olympics could have allowed the Provincial government to waive property tax for 6 years and sales tax for over a year.
The cost of the Olympics could have funded all of the social welfare programs on the Lower Eastside – including food banks and social housing – that receive Federal, Provincial, and Municipal funding for more than 16 years.
The cost of the Olympics could have built roughly 20,000 units of social housing.
The cost of the Olympics could have afforded the city the ability to hire 3,000 new police officers and pay them, with full benefits, for 20 years.
 

Security: On average, every family in British Columbia will be paying $300 towards security costs during the games. Spread out over the country’s entire population of 34 million, every Canadian would be paying $26 dollars.
During the games, the military presence in Vancouver will be the largest since the Second World War.
The total cost of security is more than VANOC’s initial assessment of what the Olympics as a whole would cost.
$79 million dollars of the security budget is being used to house military and police personnel on three cruise ships.
Security costs include $29 million dollars for new computers and $6 million dollars for new radios.
BC Ferries will receive $15 million dollars for security upgrades even though no events are taking place on any of the coast islands to which they sail.
The Canada Border Services Agency is receiving $15 million dollars in supplemental funding.
The original security budget for the games was $175 million. It is currently hovering around the billion dollar mark.”

Part of the Cultural Olympiad

ALL showtimes are PM

Fri Feb 12th – Venice Queen – 10:15 @ Ozone
Fri Feb 12th – Bedouin Soundclash – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Fri Feb 12th – Blue Rodeo – 9:15 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 13th – Matthew David – 3:15 @ Ozone
Sat Feb 13th – Jet’s Overhead – 8:00 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 13th – Five Alarm Funk – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 13th – Daniel Wesley – 10:00 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 13th – Califone! – 7:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sat Feb 13th – Hey Ocean – 8:00 @ Ozone
Sat Feb 13th – Bedouin Soundclash – 9:30 @ Ozone
Sat Feb 13th – Jessie Farrel – 10:00 @ Livecity Downtown
Sat Feb 13th – Default/Wilco – 6:15/10:00 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sun Feb 14th – Keisha Chante – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Sun Feb 14th – Mother Mother – 8:00 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sun Feb 14th – Rich Hope – 8:00 @ Livecity Downtown
Sun Feb 14th – Daniel Wesley – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sun Feb 14th – Elliot Brood – 9:30 @ Livecity Downtown
Sun Feb 14th – Serena Ryder – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Mon Feb 15th – Sloan – 10:30 @ Atlantic Canada House
Mon Feb 15th – Serena Ryder – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Mon Feb 15th – Jet’s Overhead – 9:30 @ Livecity Downtown
Mon Feb 15th – Matisyahu – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Tue Feb 16th – Fresh IE – 7:30 @ Livecity Downtown
Tue Feb 16th – Alexisonfire – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Tue Feb 16th – Buck 65 – 9:30 @ Livecity Downtown
Tue Feb 16th – Eliot Brood – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Tue Feb 16th – The Trews – 10:30 @ Atlantic Canada House
Wed Feb 17th – DRUM! – 5:00 @ Livecity Yaletown
Wed Feb 17th – Corb Lund – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Wed Feb 17th – The Arkells – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Wed Feb 17th – Hawksley Workman – 9:30 @ Ozone
Wed Feb 17th – Hot Hot Heat – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Wed Feb 17th – Ivy League Brawlers – 10:00 @ Plaza Of Nations (Edgewater)
Thur Feb 18th – Jully Black – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Thur Feb 18th – Keisha Chante – 8:00 @ Livecity Yaletown
Thur Feb 18th – Corb Lund – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Thur Feb 18th – Rumba Calzada – 9:30 @ Livecity Downtown
Thur Feb 18th – The Arkells – 8:30 @ Ozone
Thur Feb 18th – Our Lady Peace – 9:45 @ Ozone
Thur Feb 18th – Marianas Trench – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Fri Feb 19th – Deadmau5 – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Fri Feb 19th – DRUM! – 8:00 @ Ozone
Fri Feb 19th – Jully Black – 10:00 @ Holland Park
Fri Feb 19th – The Arkells – 7:00 @ Holland Park
Fri Feb 19th – Dan Mangan – 8:00 @ Holland Park
Fri Feb 19th – Sam Roberts – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 20th – The Arkells/ Sam Roberts – 6:30/9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sat Feb 20th – Marianas Trench – 9:30 @ Ozone
Sat Feb 20th – Mother Mother – 10:00 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 20th – DRUM! – 6:30 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 20th – Hey Ocean – 8:30 @ Holland Park
Sun Feb 21st – The Odds – 7:30 @ Holland Park
Sun Feb 21st – 54-40 – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Sun Feb 21st – Jully Black – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Mon Feb 22nd – Colin James – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Tue Feb 23rd – Wintersleep – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Wed Feb 24th – Wintersleep – 10:30 @ Atlantic Canada House
Wed Feb 24th – Damian “Jr.Gong” Marley – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Thur Feb 25th – Illscarlett – 6:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Thur Feb 25th – Wintersleep – 9:30 @ Ozone
Thur Feb 25th – Inward Eye – 11:30 @ Livecity Downtown
Fri Feb 26th – Tokyo Police Club – 9:45 @ Ozone
Fri Feb 26th – Inward Eye – 6:00 @ Holland Park
Fri Feb 26th – Illscarlett – 8:00 @ Holland Park
Fri Feb 26th – Marianas Trench – 9:00 @ Holland Park
Fri Feb 26th – TBC – 8/9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sat Feb 27th – Matt Mays – 6:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sat Feb 27th – Matt Mays – 10:30 @ Atlantic Canada House
Sat Feb 27th – The Stills – 10:15 @ Ozone
Sat Feb 27th – Illscarlett – 10:00 @ Ontario Pavillion
Sat Feb 27th – Blue Rodeo – 9:30 @ Livecity Yaletown
Sat Feb 27th – Wide Mouth Mason – 9:30 @ Holland Park
Sat Feb 27th – Tokyo Police Club/Wintersleep – 9/10:00 @ Holland Park
Sun Feb 28th – Five Alarm Funk – 9:30 @ Ozone

ALL showtimes are PM

TBC is to be confirmed, the act hasn’t been announced yet.

There are more shows in and around Vancouver, but these are the free ones!

Livecity Yaletown:
David Lam Park, Vancouver

Livecity Downtown:
Cambie St between Dunsmuir St and W Georgia St, Vancouver

Holland Park:
13428 Old Yale Rd., Surrey

Ozone:
Minoru Park, Richmond

Ontario Pavillion:
Concord Place, False Creek, Vancouver

Atlantic Canada House:
Granville Island

Plaza Of Nations:
750 Pacific Boulevard, Vancouver

In many social circles, Olympic excitement and support is whispered with an apologetic shrug, for fear of incurring the wrath of those louder folks unhappy with the whole spectacle. Tales of visits to the official Olympic store and plans for taking in the events and celebrations are shared with hesitance.

Laughs are being had, but in many cases, at the expense of the Games over lack of snow, the politics, spending, transportation, security and pretty much anything that can be poked fun at.

In a city very much divided over the world’s largest sporting event, the back-and-forth sentiment is cause for whiplash. I for one, am starting to feel schizophrenic over my own bandwagon nature, finding myself torn between excitement and outrage over the fanfare and its “issues”. But despite my moments of irritation and cries for social justice, I find myself wondering in disappointment if this is it?

Other than the coordinated official displays of Olympic activity at Robson Square and along Granville Street downtown and the 100-foot high Olympic advertisements plastered up the sides of sponsoring skyscrapers, Vancouver is lacking the decoration of a city about to display itself on TV’s around the world. I am waiting for the crowds dressed in head-to-toe national colours, seas of red mittens, flags hanging in the windows of houses and banners hanging from every lamp post, hydro pole and street sign.

Well, I had a moment of creative (but perhaps, not so politically correct) inspiration a week or so back that caused me to lose it in uncontrollable hysterics on the bus. I was doing that silent laugh, the kind that shakes your body and causes you to turn red in the face and cry because you can’t breathe. I could barely get a few words out, let alone explain my entire thought process to my poor man, who just stared at me like I had completely lost my marbles.

We had just spent an hour or so down at the official Olympic merch shop downtown, gorging on “cheese” in the form of toques, key chains, pins, etc, so I was flying high on Olympic love.

…Yes, one day on the bandwagon, one day off.  That’s how we Vancouverites roll, no? (Just ask the Canucks).

Anyways, for whatever reason, my Olympic excitement and resentment morphed into an image of Vancouver’s homeless wandering the streets dressed head-to-toe in Olympic clothing set to Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. Picture the bowler hat scene at the end of Thomas Crown Affair…We could shoot a couple-minute YouTube video of Olympic clad homeless pushing shopping carts down alleys, past bins and right up to the doors of the shiny new venues all set to the frantic beat of Sinnerman.

I doubt The Bay nor VANOC would sponsor the needed outfits, but golly it sure could be a social media sensation!