Camping options in BC are abundant but as I noticed from the comments on camping post about campgrounds within 2.5 hours of Vancouver, some aren’t too happy with the consistent sold-out status of these popular outdoor destinations. To stay within the 2 hour travel zone, I’m going to dip down into Washington State and help you explore some options south of the border.
Camping in North West Washington State
These listings are for Washington State Parks only and do not include private campgrounds. For vehicles entering state parks, a Discover Pass is required ($30 for the year, $10 for the day*). There are many more options as you head down the coast but I’ve selected the four closest spots (and some with the most incredible views and lingering ocean sunsets).
Park Name: Birch Bay State Park
Description: Birch Bay State Park is a 194-acre camping park with 8,255 feet of saltwater shoreline on Birch Bay and 14,923 feet of freshwater shoreline on Terrell Creek. Hiking, water skiing, windsurfing, scuba diving, fishing. Hike the Terrill Marsh trail or the interpretive trail.
Distance from Vancouver: 1 hour 1 minute [Google Map]
Park Name: Larabee State Park
Description: Larrabee State Park is a 2,683-acre camping park with 8,100 feet of saltwater shoreline on Samish Bay near Bellingham in northwest Washington. The park features two freshwater lakes, coves and tidelands. Hiking, biking, clamming, crabbing, waterskiing, scuba, fishing, boating. 17.2 miles of hiking & biking trails.
Distance from Vancouver: 1 hour 21 minutes [Google Map]
Park Name: Bay View State Park
Description: Bay View State Park is a 25-acre camping park with 1,285 feet of saltwater shoreline on Padilla Bay. Swimming, fishing, picknicking. Over 11,000 acres of Padilla Bay are designated as National Estuarine Sanctuary.
Distance from Vancouver: 1 hour 40 minutes [Google Map]
Park Name: Deception Pass State Park
Description: Deception Pass State Park is a 4,134-acre marine and camping park with 77,000 feet of saltwater shoreline, and 33,900 feet of freshwater shoreline on three lakes. Sightseeing, hiking, biking, scuba diving, boating, saltwater beaches, jutting cliffs, freshwater lakes, great views. Most campsites are near Cranberry Lake and West beach.
Distance from Vancouver: 1 hour 56 minutes [Google Map]
Results as of May 17, 2012.
The online reservation system allows you to pick your dates and view an interactive map that will display availability at Washington State Parks. You can also select your park and see a calendar view of available dates.
Find Washington State Parks on Facebook and Twitter for more information and updates.
Related: 10 BC Parks to Visit For Camping Season // Camping Around Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Sea to Sky, Sunshine Coast, 10 BC Parks to Visit.
*Prices stated are all as-of the publish date of this post.
The Vancouver Draw Down coming up June 9, 2012 and will celebrate drawing with activities all day long. With 27 free workshops at 18 locations, there is a full schedule of events to encourage Vancouverites young and old to “touch a pen to a piece of paper, and make a mark.”
Gather in an art gallery, museum, community centre, or on the street to doodle, sketch, create a font, add to a mural, and more. You don’t need to be a professional artist — everyone can draw. You can drop-in to the workshops and visit multiple sessions and venues throughout the whole day.
Just a few of the events: Humand & Animal Forms at the Museum of Anthropology, Circus! At Collage Collage, Drawing From Memory at Mountain View Cemetery, Community Portraits at Art Starts, and Drawing Across the Board.
There’s also a Daily Drawing Project leading up to the event if you would like to start drawing right away. One of the event sponsors, Vancouver is Awesome, has been profiling some Daily Draw Down participants like Billy Campbell, Jenny Kwan, and Mina Shum.
Vancouver Draw Down culminates with the kick off of Vancouver Drawn, an exhibition of drawings at local galleries from July 14 to August 4, 2012. Follow the Vancouver Draw Down on Facebook and Twitter for more information.
Imagine an entire stadium filled with chefs, restaurants, vendors, and foodies. Throw in Food Network stars, demonstations, seminars, and cooking competitions and you have EAT Vancouver.
Happening June 1-3, 2012 the 10th annual EAT Vancouver cooking festival will take over BC Place. Here are just a few of the highlights:
Celebrity Stage
Featuring: Bob Blumer (World’s Weirdest Restaurants, Glutton for Punishment), David Rocco (David Rocco’s Dolce Vita), Rob Feenie (Canada’s first Iron Chef winner, Food Concept Artist at Cactus Club), Annabelle Waugh (Food Director at Canadian Living Magazine).
International Culinary Stage
Explore the Spice of Louisiana with Chef Patrick Mould
Peru presents Chef Pedro Guillen
Fun Flavours of the Philippines with Chef Albert S. Rivera
Thailand, A Taste of Thai with Chef Arnat Seksantrakul
A feast of Flavours from Oaxaca with Chef Rossana Ascencio
There’s also the Dairy Farmers of Canada Cheese Seminar Stage, the Fit to EAT Stage, and the Grapes & Hops State with wine and beer presentations.
Competitions include a barista challenge, and you’ll find some of your favourite Vancouver restaurants represented in the food pavilion.
Photo credit:
CogitoErgoShoot on Flickr – Submitted to the Miss604 Flickr Pool.
The festival will be open Friday June 1st from 2:00pm to 9:00pm, Saturday June 2nd from 10:00am to 9:00pm, and Sunday, June 3rd from 10:00am to 5:00pm. Tickets are available online now, starting at $14. You can also sign up for a variety of Pop-Up Culinary Centre Cooking Classes for $28.
There’s an extensive list of exhibitor information, stage schedules, and more all posted online. You can also follow EAT Vancouver on Facebook and Twitter for more information.
If you would like to attend EAT Vancouver, I have a family 4-pack of tickets to give away along with 2 spots in one of the Pop-Up Culinary Centre cooking classes. The winner will also receive a Mott’s Clamato Caesar Starter Kit. Here’s how you can enter to win this prize pack:
- Leave a comment naming your favourite local restaurant, food truck, or chef (1 entry)
- Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
I will draw one winner at random from all entries on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 3:00pm. The winner can choose from any of the following Pop-Up classes: Don’t Be Afraid of the Bones, Delving into the Knife Drawer, Modern Plated Desserts, Delving into the Knife Drawer, It’s all in the Wrist, A Chef’s Arsenal Revealed, Baking Magic, Local Shucks & BC Spot Prawns, Delving into the Knife Drawer, Brunch Staples, From Street Food to Table Food Locally.
Update The winner is Jennifer Breakspear!
On a sunny Vancouver morning I set out on a walk with a dear friend around the Stanley Park sea wall. We ducked into the park around Second Beach and decided to take a detour through the gardens around the pitch and putt course. Armed with our pocket cameras, we spent close to an hour strolling through the bark-mulch paths.
We started at the camellia walk (near Ceperley Meadow), headed over to the azalea walk (near Lost Lagoon), then looped around to the magnolia walk (off Lagoon Drive). Along the way there were other photographers and several artists setting up tripods and canvases to capture the scene with watercolour.
The entire area is a part of the Ted & Mary Greig Rhododendron Garden, which is a beautiful punch of colour in the park, filled with floral scents and buzzing honeybees. If you’re not an allergy sufferer, take some time to literally stop to smell the roses (or lilacs in this case).
There’s nothing like a summer road trip in Canada and for those who have the time, getting across the country is a goal many would like to accomplish. Over the Rockies, through the prairies, around the Great Lakes, and reaching for the Atlantic coast. One family made the journey last year and they even had a theme: visit the hometowns of every Canadian player who ever played for the Vancouver Canucks.
Being big hockey fans, Kurc, his wife, and his son Carson, researched that there had been 379 Canadian players that have appeared on the Canucks roster in the club’s 40-year history. This became their road trip theme.
Blogging about their journey on 379canucks.ca, Carson — who is interested in a career in photography — documented their journey to 178 different hometowns (they didn’t reach number 179 in the Northwest Territories). After 37 days, 16,000 km, and 1,634 digital shots, Carson’s photos were posted on his website, myrighteye.ca.
“So we worked our way onwards, north to destinations on the east coast, with one very special spot off in mind – Shippagan. That’s the home town of Luc Bourdon. Since the first stages of planning this adventure, we knew that we absolutely had to make a trip to Luc’s home town, and maybe connect with someone there – his mom if it worked out, or friends. But all along on this journey we’ve wanted to let things happen naturally, and see what that inspired in us and the people we would eventually meet, and Shippagan had a few surprises in store for us….
…Last night the weather in Moncton was pretty iffy, but we awoke this morning to warm, welcoming skies. The trip was north was super, great temperature and sunny all along the way. When we did find the cemetery, it was quite serene, full of flowers on many of the memorial stones. We took some time at Luc’s grave site, reflecting on what a promising young player he was and what a tragic loss this was for everyone – fans, team mates and – of course – family.” [379Canucks Journal, New Brunswick]
“The deal was, we’d use the trip to get to the places where [Carson’s] idols originated, then see what there speaks to him, inspires him to take the photo,” Kurc told me. “He’s always had a keen eye for photography.”
Carson was born with Down Syndrome. “This has never stopped him from expressing himself in some very meaningful ways. We as parents have just opened the doors over the last 23 years. The rest, we’ve told him, has been up to him.”
Kurc had sent me a note about all of this and I came across it last night as I parsed through the emails received through my site. It was far more than an event listing and within a minute of reading it through, I felt inspired in so many different ways. His family’s fantastic journey across Canada, completing an ultimate hockey pilgrimage, was about more than hockey.
“This is also a venture for a bit of insight into what the human spirit is truly capable of creating, that everyone has a gift to share with the world,” Kurc wrote. “And that as parents, we feel we need to draw attention to this fact and provide a greater vision — that intellectually challenged individuals can contribute in unique and meaningful ways.”
Carson’s photos are currently on display at the Corner Cup coffee shop on West 4th and Blenheim in Kitsilano. There will be a reception on Friday, May 25, 2012 at 7:00pm if you would like to stop by. He’ll have another photography exhibit in June at the Good Day Sunshine Cafe in White Rock.
With 4 teams left in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, according to Kurc there are still a lot of Canadians to cheer for. He’s calculated that 14 of 26 players on the Kings are Canadian, the Coyotes have 19 Canadians out of 27, the Rangers have 10 of 27 and the Devils 8 of 26. “Still, it means 51 of 106 — and that’s still more than an other country — so I guess hockey IS a Canadian game!”
So what’s next for the family? They are wrestling with the idea of finishing the trip this summer as they didn’t get to Newfoundland. Kurc says that even after traveling such a distance, by the second day they were home they already missed the experience.
“I think everyone that calls Canada home really needs to set out on just such a trek – see the far, small corners of this country – meet the people, experience the nature of what makes us Canadian. And, yes, hockey is a big part of that package.”
Links: Carson’s website, 379Canucks.ca, Road Trip Blog on 379 Canucks.
