When it comes to romantic pairings it doesn’t get much better than wine and chocolate, and if you’re looking to indulge in some sweets with your sweetie, Township 7 Vineyards & Winery in Langley has an event just for you.
Valentine’s Day Wine and Chocolate
Enjoy an afternoon of local, handcrafted chocolates and award-winning wines at Township 7’s 10th annual Valentine’s Day Wine and Chocolate event. Bring a loved one or treat yourself to a guided pairing of four decadent White Rock Chocolates alongside Township 7’s wines in their tasting room.
Where: Township 7 Vineyards & Winery (21152 16th Ave, Langley) Dates: Saturday, February 13 & Sunday, February 14, 2016 Tasting Times: 11:30-1:00pm; 1:30pm-3:00pm; 3:30pm-5:00pm Tickets: $15 plus tax. Purchase by calling (604) 532-1766
Township 7 is known for its local events, benefits for wine club members, local tasting room and picnic area among the vines. You can also find great gift ideas in the shop. Follow the winery on Twitter or Facebook for more information about this event and more throughout the year.
Snowshoeing is so hot right now! Explore forest trails on a snowy mountain-top on your own or sign up for a guided snowshoe tour at Mount Seymour this season. Tours offered include Legends and Lanterns, Discovery, Baby & Me, SnowFit, Winter Skills, and private guided tours. One more popular tour, featuring Chocolate Fondue, is offered until March as well as on Valentine’s weekend.
Enjoy the enchantment of a Saturday evening snowshoe tour as you explore the magic of winter under the night sky. This guided experience will lead you through rolling evergreen-flanked trails to a hand-carved snow lounge where you will indulge in a delicious chocolate fondue featuring fresh-cut fruit and special dipping treats. Your guide will share fun facts and stories about chocolate and the fondue tradition while you dip your way into cocoa bliss.
Snowshoe Chocolate Fondue tours are scheduled alternating Saturdays: January 23rd, February 6th, February 20th, March 5th, and March 19th.
All tours are 2.5 hours long and start at 7:00pm. Bring your own headlamp if you have one, a limited number will also be provided. Tour packages include a guide, rental and trail pass, chocolate fondue and fresh fruit for dipping, and hot apple cider.
There is a special Valentine’s Fondue on Saturday, February 13th as well. Book online (for participants ages 13+) or call (604) 986-2261 extension 201.
Enter to Win
I have two spots to give away for an upcoming Snowshoe Chocolate Fondue tour. Here’s how you can enter to win:
Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a @Mt_Seymour Snowshoe Chocolate Fondue Tour from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/XhzSv
Follow Mount Seymour on Facebook and Twitter for more information. The winner will be able their preferred date from the scheduled options available. I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Tuesday, January 26, 2016.
It’s never too early to think about how you can send a thoughtful, sweet, and funny message to a special someone in your life. A Loving Spoonful CandyGrams are now available to purchase for Valentine’s Day, with proceeds going directly to assisting those with HIV/AIDS.
A Loving Spoonful CandyGrams
CandyGrams include a special-edition Valentine’s Day card, a message of your choice, two delicious Purdy’s heart-shaped chocolates, a complimentary McDonald’s Big Mac coupon (a vegetarian option is also available), a Yelp keychain, two bags of Your Tea, and postage. They go on sale for $10 on January 20th.
Each year, A Loving Spoonful’s volunteers deliver over 100,000 meals to those in need, and with very little government funding, they rely on the generosity of the community.
While A Loving Spoonful is based in Vancouver, you can send your CandyGrams anywhere in Canada. For on-time delivery (via Canada Post) by or before Valentine’s Day, orders must be placed on or before February 2nd for Eastern Canada, on or before February 3rd for Western Canada, and on or before February 8th for Metro Vancouver.
A Loving Spoonful is a volunteer-driven, non-partisan society that provides free, nutritious meals to people living with HIV/AIDS in Greater Vancouver. Follow A Loving Spoonful on Facebook and Twitter (tag: #candygram) for more information.
Vancouver’s largest ski and snowboard charity fundraiser is back! Monday night fundraisers return January 25th and for a minimum donation of $10, women can Shred for the Cause at Mount Seymour.
Shred for the Cause
For the 2016 season, women can ski or snowboard from 6:00pm to 10:00pm every Monday at Mount Seymour for a minimum donation of $10, with $5 from every lift ticket going to The Bloom Group. Guests can donate more if they wish, with extra donations also supporting The Bloom Group’s women’s shelters. Men are still welcome to enjoy some evening skiing. Lift tickets for men from 6:00pm to 10:00pm are $31.
Mount Seymour’s previous 8 seasons of “Shred for the Cure” raised $150,000 for the BC Cancer Foundation. With that great legacy, and looking forward, there are a few changes this year:
This year the fundraiser will support a new beneficiary, Powell Place and Springhouse Women’s Shelters, managed by The Bloom Group, and adds a streamlined donation system.
There are no vouchers given out at retail outlets. Guests can simply come up to Mount Seymour and pay at Guest Services.
The Bloom Group Community Services Society has provided some of the most progressive social services in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for over 50 years. The organization supports the most vulnerable in our community through the provision of a range of housing, health and social services. The Bloom Group operates two emergency shelters: Powell Place and Springhouse. In 2014 The Bloom Group housed and served 177 women. One in three moved on to permanent housing or treatment services, breaking the cycle of poverty and abuse.
On Mondays, until the March 28th, guests can join the Women’s Park Jam hosted by Rip Curl in the Young Guns Terrain Park from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. There will be prizes from Rip Curl and music from DJ Marie Kosmik. After 9:00pm, you can apres in the Three Peak Lodge with weekly door prizes. Okanagan Springs Brewery will be giving away a pair of snowshoes and a snowboard – everyone that buys an Okanagan drink can enter to win.
Read more about Shred for the Cause and follow Mount Seymour on Facebook and Twitter. Miss604 is a proud Social Media Ambassador of Mount Seymour this season.
It’s one of Vancouver’s lost landmarks and all that remains are pieces of its opulent interior, which can be found in antique shops or repurposed home decor, occasionally unbeknownst to the homeowner. From 1916 to 1949, the Second Hotel Vancouver stood on West Georgia Street between Howe and Granville. Built in a grand Italianate revival style, it was considered one of the great hotels of the British Empire.
1917. Second Hotel Vancouver. Georgia and Granville. Photographer: Philip Timms. Archives# CVA 677-21.
The First Hotel Vancouver
The first Hotel Vancouver, that opened in 1888, was rather utilitarian at first. It was also on the corner of Granville and Georgia. According to Fairmont, it was “a five-story, brick structure that looked and functioned much like a farmhouse.” In 1893, new Van Horne Wing on Granville was built, and another wing was added in 1904.
1890s. Georgia and Granville. First Hotel Vancouver. Archives# M-3-8.3.
In 1910 the CPR excavated on Howe Street and in early 1911 built Honeyman and Curtis’s Annex. Meanwhile, at the end of 1910 the new CPR architect W S Painter obtained a building permit for $2,000,000 for an ‘Addition to hotel’. In January 1912 it was reported that a $1,000,000 14-storey replacement hotel would be built for the CPR. It wouldn’t just fill the Granville and Georgia corner, it filled the block all the way back to Robson and Howe. [Source: Changing Vancouver]
The Second Hotel Vancouver
The Canadian Pacific Railway built the hotel, with tiers that stepped up to a central section, from 7 to 10 and finally 16 storeys, with architect Francis S. Swales between 1912 and 1916. It was the most remarkable and expensive building that the city had seen, according to Changing Vancouver. “When completed the hotel, it is said, will have the largest ground floor corridors of any hotel in existence.”
Features included arched windows, castle-like turrets and a 14th floor that was adorned with eight-foot tall terra cotta moose and buffalo head sculptures. Gargoyles, Canadian-style. The hotel was big, with 700 rooms, several dining rooms, two ballrooms, a billiard room, shops and offices. And it was a study in elegance, from its three-storey entrance portico to its renowned rooftop garden. [Source: Vancouver Sun]
1914. Upper floors under construction. Archives# Hot P55.3.
1923. Photographer: Philip Timms. Archives# CVA 677-951.
1929. Photographer: Leonard Frank. Archives# Van Sc P63.5.
1910s. Driveway of the Second Hotel Vancouver. Archives# CVA 677-534.
It was where dignitaries and stars of the silver screen stayed in Vancouver, and where locals enjoyed rooftop dining and dancing.
1920. Corner of Georgie and Hornby. Archives# CVA 371-884.
Just imagine Georgia and Granville back then: The Hudson’s Bay Building, Birks Building, Vancouver Block, and the Hotel Vancouver. Attached to the hotel was the Vancouver Opera House, later the Lyric Theatre, and the Orpheum down the block.
(Left) 1917 Photographer: F. Gowen. Archives# CVA 677-170. (Right) 2014 Photographer Steve Vanderwoerd. View from Robson Street. Click to view large.
“It was beautiful and grand,” Dal Richards, Vancouver’s late, great, King of Swing, once told the Vancouver Sun: “They had a Crystal Ballroom, adjoined by what they called Peacock Alley, which was a broad entrance hall that went down the full length of the ballroom. It had antique furniture, oriental rugs and all that sort of thing, brass railings. Below that, in the lower level, dancing all year was done in what was called the Spanish Grill. That was the nightclub of the hotel, that’s where the orchestras played.”
If it had survived, this Hotel Vancouver would now be the place to stay in town, a heritage hotel to rank with The Empress in Victoria or The Palace in San Francisco. But it was killed by the falling fortunes of its owner, the Canadian Pacific Railway. [Source: Vancouver Sun]
1949 – Demolition of the Second Hotel Vancouver. VPL # 42396
Architectural historian Harold Kalman says in the The History of Metropolitan Vancouver: “Delayed by the Depression, it [the third Hotel Vancouver] was rushed to completion in 1939 for the Royal Visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The rival CPR co-operatively closed its own, earlier, Hotel Vancouver (two blocks east), lent the name, and entered into a joint management contract.”
1939. View of the Second from the Third (current) Hotel Vancouver along Georgia. Archives# CVA 1376-154.
1916. The Second Hotel Vancouver’s rooftop garden. Photographer:Canadian Photo Co. Archives #PAN N120A.
1939. View down Georgia of Birks Building, Second Hotel Vancouver, Third Hotel Vancouver. Photographer: Leonard Frank. Archives #LP 159.
1949. View of the demolition of the Second Hotel Vancouver from what is now the art gallery. Hudsons’s Bay Building, Birks Building, and Vancouver Block in the background. Photographer: Walter E. Frost. Archives #CVA 447-60.
With no one willing to buy and rehabilitate the 1916 hotel, it was demolished in 1949. “In its last years,” writes Chuck Davis, “it served as army barracks during WWII,and then housed veterans, who squatted during a housing crunch.”
1969. Looking at a vacant Georgia and Howe from the Hotel Georgia. Click to see 2016 view. Photographer: Ernie H. Reksten. Archives# 2010-006.091.
Nothing, except for a parking lot, would occupy that valuable piece of prime Vancouver real estate until the TD Tower and Eaton’s Centre were built in the 1972.
Snowshoe Chocolate Fondue tours are scheduled alternating Saturdays: January 23rd, February 6th, February 20th, March 5th, and March 19th. 
