Vancouver Icons: St Paul’s Hospital

Comments 1 by Rebecca Bollwitt

An entire city has built up around St Paul’s Hospital, which has been providing patient care and advancing medical technology over the last century in downtown Vancouver. Thinking ahead to the holiday season, and the legendary St Paul’s light display, I have chosen the iconic hospital for today’s photo feature that includes modern and archive images.


1923: Archives# Bu N251.


1940 & 1920: VPL# 14700 & 12204. Photographer: Leonard Frank.

Vancouver - St Paul's Hospital pano 01
Photo credit: Joe Mabel on Flickr

St. Paul's Hospital A view of St. Paul's Hospital
Photo credit: Canadian Pacific & brent_granby on Flickr

St. Paul's Hospital: Historic Burrard Building St. Paul's Hospital: Historic Burrard Building
Photo credit: Heritage Vancouver & Heritage Vancouver on Flickr

A view of St. Paul's Hospital Untitled
Photo credit: brent_granby & Cannabis Culture on Flickr

Historic St. Paul's Hospital
Photo credit: Canadian Pacific on Flickr

Lights of Hope is an annual fundraising campaign to support St. Paul’s Hospital. Donations to the campaign can be made today to support doctors, nurses and other caregivers, along with the 380,000 patients they care for each year. The Lights of Hope display will be illuminated on November 20, 2013.

St. Paul's Hospital Christmas Lights
Photo credit: quinet on Flickr

lights of hope... (part 27) IMG_2688
Photo credit: steveleenow & jonrawlinson on Flickr

Tonight in Vancouver: The brightest yard in the block!
Photo credit: [@travelfox] Julius Reque on Flickr

St. Paul's Hospital Christmas Lights
Photo credit: quinet on Flickr

Previous Vancouver Icons posts: Capilano Lake, Stawamus Chief, Nine O’Clock Gun, Malkin Bowl, Search, Vancouver Rowing Club, Echoes, Point Atkinson Lighthouse, English Bay Inukshuk, Hollow Tree, Hotel Europe, Lions Gate Bridge Lions, LightShed, Granville Bridge, 217.5 Arc x 13′, Canoe Bridge, Vancouver Block, Bloedel Conservatory, Centennial Rocket, Canada Place, Old Courthouse/Vancouver Art Gallery, Dominion Building, Science World, Gastown Steam Clock, SFU Burnaby, Commodore Lanes, Siwash Rock, Kitsilano Pool, White Rock Pier, Main Post Office, Planetarium Building, Lord Stanley Statue, Vancouver Library Central Branch, Victory Square, Digital Orca, The Crab Sculpture, Girl in Wetsuit, The Sun Tower, The Hotel Vancouver, The Gassy Jack Statue, The Marine Building, and The Angel of Victory. Should you have a suggestion for the Vancouver Icons series please feel free to leave a note in the comments. It should be a thing, statue, or place that is very visible and recognizable to the public.

CRAFT Beer Market Opening: Win Tickets

Comments 149 by Rebecca Bollwitt

The much-anticipated CRAFT Beer Market is set to open November 7th in the old Salt Building in the heart of The Village on False Creek. This mega pub will have the most taps in Canada with 140 beers on tap — 50 of which are brewed right here in BC.

Craft-Beer-Market-Vancouver-Opening

The 13,000-square-foot space has room for 400 seats, plus a 50-person patio. Inside, the architecture of the circa-1930 Salt Building, which was actually used for storing and packing salt back in the day, has been lovingly preserved. The feel is of an airy, vintage warehouse, with rough-hewn timbers criss-crossing overhead and light filtering in from massive windows. The open space is dominated by a large, oval-shaped bar, with a pair of mezzanine areas overhead. [Inside Vancouver]

Venue features include the original wood structure from the 1930s, high ceilings, and historic trusses. The kitchen has an open concept, there is a private room and mezzanine level for special events, it is Certified LEED Gold, and the largest LEAF Certified Restaurant in Canada. Over 250 kegs in house hold 5,000 gallons of beer (over 19,000 litres), and flow through over 3km of draft lines.

Of course you have to pair all of this beer goodness with great food so the focus will be on North American cuisine, drawing from local inspiration and ingredients. Gluten-free options, Sunday brunch, an extensive wine and cocktail menu will diversify CRAFT Beer Market’s offerings.

CRAFT Beer Market Opening Contest

If you would like to walk through the doors and check out CRAFT Beer Market before the general public on Thursday, November 7, 2013, I have the opportunity to give away 5 double passes to the sneak-peak preview event on Wednesday, November 6, 2013. At this preview event, which will run from 5:00pm until 8:00pm, guests will enjoy complimentary drinks and small bites as they check out the impressive space. Here’s how you can enter to win:

  • Leave a comment naming your favourite Canadian beer (1 entry)
  • Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win tix to @CRAFTbeeryvr’s preview event from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/qfyIt

I will draw 5 winners (who will each get a double pass) at 12:00pm on Friday, November 1, 2013. Must be legal drinking age (19+) to enter, win, and attend. Please enjoy responsibly.

CRAFT Beer Market is located at 85 West 1st in the Salt Building and also has locations in Calgary and Edmonton. Follow on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

Update The winners are Peter A, Andy Lumb, Dave, Chantel, and @andreastwocents!

Canzine West 2013

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

Canzine West is coming up on Saturday, November 2nd, featuring workshops and speaker sessions that will discuss independent publishing, storytelling, and more along with a Zine Fair with vendors, zines, comics, small press books, and over one hundred titles on display.

horizontal ad - canzine west

When Saturday, November 2, 2013 from 1:00pm to 7:00pm
Where Ukrainian Hall (805 E Pender St, Vancouver)
Tickets $5 admission at the door or $10 includes admission and a year’s subscription to Broken Pencil Magazine.

Canzine West Line-Up

2:00pm to 3:00pm the “1-2 Punch Book Pitch”
You get two minutes to pitch your book to our panel of judges. They get one minute each to tell you why you’ll never get published in a million, billion years, or why they want to see your manuscript in their inbox ASAP. The winner of the pitch gets bragging rights and a Broken Pencil prize pack worth $200. Judges include Brian Kaufman (founder of subTerrain), Kevin Chong (editor at Joyland).

3:00pm to 4:00pm the “Personal in the Panel: Autobiography in Comics”
The ongoing show Bio/Graphic: Autobiography in Comics at the Seymour Art Gallery presents the work of six diverse Vancouver artists who work in the autobiographical comic medium. Three artists from that exhibit — Miriam Libicki, Sarah Leavitt and Colin Upton — will discuss the challenges and craft of representing real life in graphic form at this panel moderated by show curator Luke Krienke. Presented in conjunction with the Seymour Art Gallery.

4:00pm to 6:00pm “Meaghen Buckley: Reading With Chair”
Reading with Chair is a commentary on the body’s role in the immersive experience of reading. The self (body and mind as one) is in dialogue with the text, but the body, locus of all sense experiences, is generally restricted to a few key interaction functions: supporting the book’s weight, turning pages. In reading, one enters into another world, leaving behind the whole body as gatekeeper – in some sense an out-of-body experience. As someone who still occasionally walks around while reading, in this performance Meaghen gives the body freer reign to satisfy itself, its motions and actions somehow not disrupting the intense connection between eyes and page.

4:00pm to 5:00pm “Four Eight-Minute Hyperspeed Talks”
From: Geoff Mann, Jordan Abel, Catherine Owen, Cathy Busby, Aimee Henry Brown.

5:00pm to 6:00pm “Vancouver Writers Series at Canzine West” with Jennica Harper
MFA Opening Readers include Taylor Basso, Matthew Walsh, Alessandra Naccarato.

Canzine West is presented by Broken Pencil, a print magazine published four times a year. It is one of the few magazines in the world devoted exclusively to underground culture and the independent arts. Read Broken Pencil for reviews of the best zines, books, websites, videos and music from the underground and reprints the best articles from the alternative press. Follow Canzine West on Facebook to learn more about the event.

West Coast Women’s Show: On Now

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

Even after all of the free samples at the West Coast Women’s Show — everything from Turkish coffee and olive oil to hummus and fruitcake, I couldn’t resist crunching on some pumpkin, cranberry Monkey Toast when I got home along with a sweet spoonful of Campbell’s Gold Honey. The West Coast Women’s Show was absolutely hopping at TRADEX in Abbotsford during its first full day, here are just a few of the show’s highlights for me:

West Coast Women's Show 2013 West Coast Women's Show 2013

Picked up some delicious pumpkin cranberry @Monkey_Toast at @WCWomensShow West Coast Women's Show 2013 West Coast Women's Show 2013

Gluten-Free, Grills, and Glamour

To start, TRADEX is a giant venue (twice as big as I thought when I first walked through the doors) and it was filled with women yesterday who were shopping, enjoying a martini and a fashion show, and getting their nails done. The biggest crowds at first glance were at the gluten free product stands, the grill appliance demos (that smelled amazing, cooking up zucchini, chicken, and sausages) and at glamour booths where attendees could get henna on their hands, glitter eye shadow, or gel nail polish.

West Coast Women's Show 2013

West Coast Women's Show 2013 West Coast Women's Show 2013

"Trendiest vegetable of the year" - Jeff from @restaurant62 on cauliflower at @WCWomensShow
Chef Jeff Moore from Restaurant 62 in Abbotsford on the Kitchen Theatre Stage

West Coast Women's Show 2013

West Coast Women's Show 2013 West Coast Women's Show 2013

West Coast Women's Show 2013 West Coast Women's Show 2013

Shopping

There was really so much to see and do that I went through twice, once along and once with a friend, and I still don’t think I got to everything after 2 hours. We did a quick stop at the fashion show and sipped some Skinny Grape wine samples as Hall of Flame calendar firefighters signed autographs, we heard all of the pitches from the stone cookware booth and Norwex cloth ladies, and made some great purchases. I bought the aforementioned Monkey Toast, made by a local couple in Horseshoe Bay, some Campbell’s Gold Honey that I visited on a Circle Farm Tour this summer, and I was almost sold on some hot packs, a purse with designs by Corrine Hunt, and some loose-leaf teas.

West Coast Women's Show 2013 West Coast Women's Show 2013

West Coast Women's Show 2013
The Sevenoaks Shopping Centre fashion show.

Saturday and Sunday

There are still two full days of the West Coast Women’s Show packed with kitchen demos, health and wellness, samples, shopping, and much more. The show will run Saturday, October 26, 2013 from 10:00am to 9:00pm; Sunday, October 27, 2013 from 11:00am to 5:30pm at TRADEX in Abbotsford. Admission is $12 for adults, $9 for seniors ($7 on Friday from 1:00pm to 4:00pm), $9 for youth (13-17), $4 for children (6-12), and children 5 and under are free. Ticket prices include GST. Ticket sales are cash only at the gate at TRADEX.

Follow the West Coast Women’s Show on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

Tour Guys Murders Mystery and Mayhem Tour

Comments 17 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Walking tours are a fantastic way for visitors to learn about our city and for locals, they help us understand more about our own backyard — while often being highly entertaining. Tour Guys, Vancouver’s largest walking tour company, has re-launched their overwhelmingly popular “Murders, Mystery and Mayhem” tour for a third straight year.

Gassy Jack, foggy
Photo credit: colink. on Flickr

“Murders, Mysteries and Mayhem” is the brainchild of two East Van natives, Jessica O’Neill and Alasdair Butcher, passionate local historians who grew up on Commercial Drive and in Strathcona. Jessica explains how the tour came about. “I’d been guiding with Tour Guys for 2 years, and when (owner) Steve Woodall asked me to write a Halloween tour, I was excited. But that quickly turned to disappointment when I realized how flimsy and fake most of Vancouver’s ghost stories are!” The solution? A tour comprised of the really scary stuff – the true stories of crime, killings and terror.

This tour explores a Vancouver “that is more than natural beauty, tall glass towers and high property values — a Vancouver that has changed less than you’d think since its days as a rough and dirty mill town in the 1860s.” Departing from the Vancouver Art Gallery, guests make their way to Gastown, taking an unexpected route that includes going down dark alleys, through eerily lit squares and even indoors to see a larger than life riot.

Murders, Mysteries and Mayhem” runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings at 6:00pm and 8:00pm (more dates/times added as needed) until the first weekend of November. It is recommended for those over the age of 12.

50% Promo Code & Contest

The Tour Guys have graciously setup a promo code of “MISS604” for my readers to receive 50% off their ticket purchase for tours this week and next. Use this link to receive the discount when booking.

I also have a pair of tickets to give away for one of next week’s walking tours. Here’s how you can enter to win:

  • Leave a comment here naming a creepy/scary place in Vancouver (1 entry)
  • Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win tickets to the Tour Guys’ Mystery and Mayhem #Halloween Tour from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/q9jQ5

I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Sunday, October 27, 2013. The winner will be able to attend the tour on either October 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st or November 1st (their choice). Follow Tour Guys (Vancouver and Toronto) on Facebook for more information about their seasonal and year-round tours.

Update The winner is Shirley!