The rain boots are out, the umbrellas have been dusted off and the corn mazes are cut. It’s almost fall in Vancouver and seasonal festivals and events are beginning to fill the calendar. This weekend Miss604 is proud to be the social media sponsor of the Canuck Place Gift of Time Gala. Find this event and many more things to do in Vancouver this weekend below:

Things to do in Vancouver This Weekend

Friday, September 20, 2019
Club House Gala
Find the Perfect Pint
Kids Can Cook: Easy Lunch Boxes
RENT on Stage in Vancouver
Wine & Tote Screenprinting Night
17th Annual FarmAde at the UBC Farm
Shipyards Night Market
Richmond Night Market
Kokoro Dance: Reading the Bones
Après le Déluge: The Buddy Cole Monologues
Vancouver International Flamenco Festival
Hidden Wonders: Chinatown
Snowbird RV Show
Bard on the Beach

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Word Vancouver, Western Canada’s largest literary festival! The festival promotes books and authors with free exhibits, performances, and hands-on activities for a wide range of ages and interests.

Word Vancouver 2019

When: Tuesday, September 24 to Sunday, September 29, 2019
Where: Various venues throughout Vancouver
Admission: Free

Festival Highlights

• September 24, 2019: Pandora’s Collective and Britannia Library Present: Poetic Pairings
• September 25, 2019: Italian Cultural Centre: Books and Biscotti Meet Word Vancouver with authors Monica Meneghetti, Anna Foschi.
• September 26, 2019: Joel Kroeker – Jungian Music Psychotherapy: When Psyche Sings at Banyen Books and Sound
• September 26, 2019: Pandora’s Collective’s presents Twisted Poets featuring Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Kate Braid & Onjana Yawnghweat at Hood 29.
• September 27, 2019: Christianne’s Lyceum features local illustrators Aidan Cassie, Karen Holman, Karen Hibbard, Scott Ritchie and Jami Gigot.
• September 27, 2019: Joy’s Historic Joy Kagawa House and Pocket Book Publishing invite Vancouver’s Francophone community to launch a new edition of the classic Obasan novel by Joy Kagawa.
• September 28, 2019: Carnegie Centre – Various Workshops plus an Opec Mic
• September 28, 2019: SFU Harbour Centre – Various Workshops
• September 28, 2019: Pandora’s Collective and Word Vancouver Present Still/ed Here – A Transmedia Poetry Project.
• September 29, 2019: Main VPL Library 11:00am to 5:00pm multiple stages, exhibitors, workshops, panels, one on one talks, and more.

The final day of the festival at the central Vancouver Public Library is by far the largest event of the festival attracting over twenty thousand book lovers to seven stages and eighty exhibitors.

This year the organizers have made some changes to the Sunday event at the VPL by adding an Indigenous Stage (curated by Russell Wallace) and by bringing many of the presentation stages inside the library.

Outside on the library plaza the festival has added a covered family picnic area with a children’s stage, games, children’s book exhibitors and the Poetry in Transit Bus. Inside the library in the Atrium and 8th and 9th floors, festival goers will find the Indigenous Stage, Fiction Stage, Non-Fiction Stage, Poetry Stage, Community Stage, Magazine Stage along with panels and workshops.

For more information and a full list of locations follow Word Vancouver on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The National Geographic Live touring speaker series continues October 8th with photojournalist Cristina Mittermeier presenting Standing At Water’s Edge. The series brings National Geographic’s most dynamic and entertaining explorers, in three thrilling presentations, to the Orpheum.

National Geographic Live – Standing At Water’s Edge

Where: Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe St, Vancouver)
When: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 at 7:00pm
Tickets: Available online now

Photojournalist Cristina Mittermeier knows the power of water: the power to give life when it is respected, and the power to destroy when it is misused. She learned the concept of responsible earth stewardship from her indigenous nanny as a child growing up in Mexico, and she explores that calling through the ways of life of four communities and their individual relationships with water.

During her time with the Kayapó people in the Amazon, she documented a society that relied on their local waterway to survive—and found their way of life threatened by a massive new dam.

In British Columbia, she found First Nations protecting their sacred headwaters, and in Hawaii, a new community of indigenous peoples seeking to reclaim their connection to the sea. She learned that one concept bound these three disparate communities together: “Enoughness,” or taking only what you need.

Win Tickets

I have a pair of tickets to give away to National Geographic Live – Standing At Water’s Edge on October 8th, here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
• Click below to post an entry on Twitter

Follow Vancouver Civic Theatres on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more information about this event and many other shows and performances throughout the year. I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Thursday, September 26, 2019.

Patrick Street Productions is excited to present Herringbone, unique one-man cabaret musical by Canadian playwright Tom Cone at New Westminster’s Anvil Centre.

Herringbone at the Anvil Centre

Where: Anvil Centre Theatre (777 Columbia St, New Westminster)
When: September 26 to October 6, 2019 (previews September 24-25)
Tickets: From $27 available online now or call (604) 521-5050

An Off Broadway hit, Herringbone is a musical cabaret that is a fun-house ride of farce and fear. It is a one-person show in which the actor plays 12 characters. Taking a unique approach, Peter Jorgensen and Luisa Jojic will perform this tour de force role on alternating nights, each bringing their own perspective and interpretation to the play and all the characters. 

Set in Alabama in 1929 during the start of the Great Depression, it is the story of a young boy, eight-year-old George, along with his parents, Arthur and Louise, who are struggling to keep the family afloat. They are hoping their financial worries will be resolved with a windfall either from the death of a rich relative or from young Georgie’s efforts in a speech contest.  Once they learn that no money has been left to them, the focus is on George, who wins the speech contest. George captures the attention of a former vaudeville performer who was half of a duo called “The Chicken and the Frog.”  Mr. Moseley, as he is now known, offers to give George acting lessons.  Seeing dollar signs and wanting his son to look the part, Arthur buys George a custom herringbone suit, his ideal of elegance and style.

But before you know it, George can’t stop dancing.  He has been possessed by the vengeful spirit of Mr. Moseley’s malevolent former partner Lou, the Frog, a dancing dwarf who was murdered by Moseley, the Chicken.  Lou is hell-bent on revenge and the chance to enjoy the success denied him by his untimely death. Little George becomes a successful vaudevillian, barnstorming the country until he reaches the bright lights of Hollywood. 

The herringbone suit gives little George his new moniker … but who will win the battle for George’s soul?

Win Tickets

I have a pair of tickets to give away for opening night on September 26th, here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
• Click below to post an entry on Twitter

Follow Patrick Street Productions on Facebook and Twitter for more info. I’ll draw one winner at random from all entries at 9:00am on Tuesday, September 24, 2019.

I had tears in my eyes. Imagine being able to see something in nature before it went extinct? That’s what it felt like to soar above diminishing lakes, receding rivers, expansive moraines, and the cracks and crags of ancient blankets of ice in the Yukon’s Kluane National Park and Reserve.

Landing on a Glacier in the Yukon

“Many of these mountains do not have names, many of them have never been climbed before,” our pilot’s words burst into my headset with an amplified whir of the plane engine. We were gaining altitude, climbing thousands of feet above Kluane NPR, which is the largest internationally protected area in the world and home to 17 of Canada’s 20 tallest mountains—including Mount Logan, the country’s highest peak.

Our destination was the world’s largest non-polar icefield, where we would land on a glacier, get out, and take a little walk around. They say non-polar since Antartica, the North Pole, and Greenland have larger icefields, and this one sits in the sub-arctic.

Lower Lonsdale’s Shipyards Festival is bringing family fun and live music to its stunning waterfront venue with 4 stages featuring 40 performers, a Family Zone, axe throwing, beer garden and local food vendors.

Shipyard Festival

Where: The Shipyards District, Lower Lonsdale & Lonsdale Quay
When: Saturday, September 28, 2019 from 12:00am to 10:00pm
Admission: Free!

The lineup so far includes: Harpoonist & The Axe Murder, The Boom Booms, Mike Edel, John Welsh & Los Valientes, Kutapira, Sleepy Gonzales, North Shore Celtic Ensemble, HOFFEY, Adam Woodall, Uno Mas, Sky Parallel, Havyn, Redwoods, MNGWA, Cherrie Laurel, Sister Says, Pat Chessell and Portiia.

Kids will be well entertained in the Seaspan Family Zone with Rockin’ Robin and the Magical Tree, Ginalina and Mike Battie along with face-painting, balloon arts and crafts. This year’s event features an expanded beer garden, artisans and vendors in the newly minted Shipyard Commons, as well as DJ’s, buskers, food trucks, acoustic entertainers and more.

For more information follow Lower Lonsdale on Facebook and Twitter.

The Shipyards District Lower Lonsdale, one of North Vancouver’s oldest and fastest growing urban neighbourhoods, is rich with shipbuilding history and bursting with life. It’s a quick 12-minute SeaBus ride from Downtown Vancouver, home to two hotels and the beloved Lonsdale Quay. The district has transformed into a modern hub of independent shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs, specialty food stores, boutiques, salons and spas run by North Shore creatives.