To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the parade, it will be bigger than ever this year with marching bands, cultural dance troupes, lion dancers, community groups, the Vancouver Police Department Motorcycle Drill Team, and over 60 other entries bringing together 3,000 participants for an estimated 50,000 spectators. Festivities will kick off earlier as well with the parade setting out at 11:00am, taking 2.5 hours to complete.
Parade Route
The 1.3km parade route has been adjusted for 2013 to accomodate more participants. It will start out at the Millenium Gate on Pender (between Shanghai Alley and Taylor Street) and proceed east along Pender, turning south on Gore, west on Keefer, then dispersing at Keefer and Taylor.
TV Broadcast
If you can’t make it out to the parade, you can watch delayed coverage on Shaw Multicultural Channel, Shaw TV, and Omni later that day and the following weekend. Check local listings for exact times.
Post-Parade Lion Dances
Following the parade there will be lion dances throughout Chinatown. The lions will perform a celebrative dance at each participating shop to bring good luck and prosperity from approximately 2:00pm to 4:00pm.
The Cultural Fair and Chinatown Spring Festival will take place on Saturday, February 16 and Sunday, February 17, 2013 at the Sun Yat-Sen Plaza (50 East Pender). This event is free and open to all. It will feature multicultural performances, a lion dance grande finale, martial arts demonstrations and more. Stop by between 1:00pm and 4:00pm on Saturday and between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on Sunday.
Travel vloggers eat your hearts out! Back in 1936 James A. FitzPatrick presented a series of newsreels in fantastic new Technicolor called Traveltalks which included profiles of Victoria and Vancouver. Most of Fitzpatrick’s Traveltalks were produced by MGM and featured over a hundred destinations, from Motoring in Mexico (1943) and Chicago the Beautiful (1948) to Over The Seas to Borneo (1932) and Rural Sweden (1938).
Vancouver’s segment begins at around the 5:30 mark.
After completing training in the dramatic arts, [FitzPatrick] worked for a while as a journalist. In 1925 he entered films and specialized throughout his career in travel documentaries. Besides directing, he also wrote, produced, and narrated many of his films. MGM distributed a series of his travel films under the umbrella titles “Fitzpatrick Traveltalks” and “The Voice of the Globe”, as did Paramount as “Vistavision Visits.” The hallmarks of Fitzpatrick’s films were Technicolor photography and stolidity. [Source: IMDB]
In the reel, Vancouver is a budding city of 350,000 inhabitants with “one of the finest harbours in the world”. The Marine Building and the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver dominate the skyline, and The Great Fire was referenced as an event that took place a mere 70 years before the film.
1931. VPL Number: 4260. Photographer: Leonard Frank.
“By a strange twist of fate therefor, Vancouver – the great lumber port of the Northwest – has fewer wooden buildings than any other city of its size in the Dominion of Canada.”
It’s a quick segment but it’s fascinating to see the city, in colour, at that time – including a moving shot of the same view I have posted here (right).
Credit for this find goes to Steffani Cameron, who recently started up the Victoria-based blog Van Isle Style and profiled Victoria in 1936: MGM Traveltalk Newsreel.
Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada is back on Saturday, February 9, 2013 to bring the country together through community events, on-ice activities, and of course plenty of hockey action as Canadian NHL teams face off.
Scotiabank is hosting three main programs in conjunction with Hockey Day:
Virtual High Fives
Fans are encouraged to post a picture of their Best High Five Moment on the Scotia Hockey Club Facebook page (for inspiration, check out the High Five Series that my pals Vancouver is Awesome have kept up). Between Friday and Saturday, Scotiabank will randomly select 5 photos and those fans will get a personalized video message from an NHL alumni live from Peterborough.
Tweet with Lanny McDonald
On Saturday, February 9th, between 11:am and 12:00pm (Pacific) Scotiabank will be hosting a live tweet chat on @ScotiaHockey, whereby fans can ask questions to Lanny McDonald! Fans can either ask questions on Twitter or on Facebook but they need to use the tag #askLanny.
High Five Program
More high fives! This time, it’s an interactive gesture with the Scotiabank High Five to the Stanley Cup Final contest. Canadian hockey fans choose their team they want to support (this is the team they are going to follow for the season. Should they wish, they have one opportunity to change their team before April 3rd). Then, every time their team scores, fans have 10 minutes to go to the app to High Five. Fans can also opt-in to receive real-time goal notifications via email or text to make this step go quickly. After their team finishes a game, fans also have 12 hours to log on for a bonus High Five.
Each fan’s High Fives logged through the app counts as a contest entry and each week a random winner will be selected to win two tickets to any NHL game of their choice. On June 10th, one grand prize winner will be chosen who will receive a VIP experience for two to a Stanley Cup Final Game. Contest is open until June 9th, 2013 and is open to all Canadian residents.
My Contest
To promote Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada, I have a prize pack to give away that includes a toque, mittens scarf, skate sharpening device, an eco bag and a branded pin.
Here’s how you can enter to win this prize pack:
Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a @ScotiaHockey #HockeyDay prize pack from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/hwcdU
I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 10:00am on Hockey Day (Saturday, February 9, 2013). Follow Scotia Hockey on Twitter and Facebook for more information about Hockey Day in Canada this Saturday, live from Peterborough.
Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada: Richmond
For Hockey Day activities in our region, check out what’s happening at the Richmond Olympic Oval. From 10:00am until about 7:00pm on Saturday, February 9, 2013 they’ll have “all things hockey under one roof”. Five Hole For Food will be on site to collect donations of non-perishable food items for the Richmond Food Bank and activities will include ball hockey, street hockey, memorabilia booths, collectibles, and more including numerous merchandise giveaways, prize draws and fun contests.
Visitors will include the Canucks’ mascot Fin, Canadian rockers Odds, and Hockey Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur. There will also be a Vancouver Canucks Alumni game vesus Richmond Sockeyes Alumni at 4:00pm (tickets are $15 online) with partial proceeds going to support KidSport.
National Cupcake Day is coming on February 25th and to make the occasion that much sweeter, it’s actually all for a great cause. If you’re a cupcake baker with a big heart you can sign up to host an online bakery page where cupcakes orders can be tracked and your can organize your own National Cupcake Day party. The goal of the campaign is to support the Ontario SPCA and the BC SPCA. Proceeds will help give a surrendered puppy a home, rescue a neglected pony, provide emergency surgery to an injured kitten and save thousands of lives.
Show off your creations to the world via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
Send in the donations collected at your National Cupcake Day party to the Ontario SPCA (for eastern Canada) or the BC SPCA (for western Canada) by March 18th. You can also donate online to support a campaign if you’re not hosting your own National Cupcake Day party.
Follow National Cupcake Day on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for more information about the event, fundraising tips, cupcake ideas, and more.
Over the years I have profiled bloggers from the Northwest Territories to the Fraser Valley, anyone that interests me and that I hope will interest you as well. A few years ago I started asking a standard set of questions and I’ve sent these out to a few local bloggers for this week’s series. Click, share, explore, and enjoy.
How long has your blog been around?
Started on Dec 1, 2012 @ midnight and has seen an incredible growth in a short time.
What is your role?
I am the Chief Daddy at DaddyBlogger.ca although I have several Guest Daddies and a Mommy’s Corner too.
What does your site do/what is it about?
The goal of DaddyBlogger is to change the world – one daddy at a time. I write about parenting from a father’s perspective.
What can people see, read, and do when visiting your site?
The website has several components: A daily written blog, a weekly online TV show interviewing 3-4 dads, monthly YVR Dads Meetup Group, Dad of the Week profiles, event and product reviews, contest giveaways, and a free comic book for email subscribers.
Why do you blog?
I blog for several reasons: To make money (I treat my website as a business not just a blog), to make a difference by transforming the lives of fathers, to process everything that happens to me internally as a parent, to leave a legacy for my daughter, to educate and inspire other parents and bloggers.
What is the ultimate goal for your site, how would you like to see it grow?
The goal is to make a full-time income through internet marketing and blogging.
How long has your blog been around?