Exploring the unlikely intersections of walking, photography and making
The second in a series of jaunts in the key of white. This week, I recount a December 27, 2017 walk along Mosquito Creek in North Vancouver. I have misgivings about attempting a walk this morning. With a mug of hot coffee in hand, I watch the snow fall just outside the expansive windows of... Continue Reading →
Here begins a series of jaunts in the key of white. This week, I follow the Capilano River in North Vancouver. It’s December 26 and the terrain is unexpectedly wintery, the weather too cool for a prairie boy looking for a reprieve from the chill back home. I start high up in the posh residential... Continue Reading →
Grind indeed. The Grouse Grind lies outside any conventional notion of walking. This is no promenade. Want to commune with nature? Find another trail. This is sheer exercise, a cocktail of pure adrenaline spiked with a shot of danger. The Grind rises from the residential edge of North Vancouver and steadily, steeply rises up the... Continue Reading →
For Gail and me, Remembrance Day in Winnipeg always includes a walk down Valour Road for a service at a small park on Sargent Avenue. This year, I am in North Vancouver, on my way to their Remembrance Day service. It’s a one-hour walk to Victoria Park, an eastward trek that leapfrogs suburban neighbourhoods and... Continue Reading →
In this snowless domestic landscape, Christmas lights glow, framing the distant mass of Grouse Mountain. Green, treed slopes rise above the roofs until capped by a dusting of snow. It’s one of those rare straight lines drawn by nature, separating a ribbon of temperate green from a broad band of white above. As I start... Continue Reading →
The urban overlay of North Vancouver, the city, can come across as an amorphous mass without any sense of centre. Industry and commerce line the harbour front in a continuous stream of innocuous buildings. Inland is the repetitive grid of streets, for the most part small-scale residential houses with the occasional high rise apartment punching... Continue Reading →
If I were to choose a time to walk in the woods, this would not be it. But here I am, walking along Mosquito Creek, engulfed in the deep, dark shadows of a long winter night, straining to see two steps ahead through a hard rain. *** Some time ago, my sister and her husband... Continue Reading →
If you look at a map of North Vancouver, three geographical elements appear to define its character: the mountains that line its northern edge, Vancouver Harbour to the south and, in between these two natural barriers, Highway One as it rips through on its transcontinental journey across Canada. All are east-west lines, effectively squeezing the... Continue Reading →