Erik's Lynn Canyon Tour

For a week now I've been staying in the hostel in downtown Vancouver and the days are so filled with activities that I don't have time to write it all down.
I didn't really want to stay in a hostel, but it's simply the best place to meet people. And I have to say, it's not as bad as I expected ;) It's clean, the 4-bed rooms are okay, although a bit small, and the location is just great. However, the hostel is actually more expensive than an Airbnb room.

Every Tuesday, the hostel offers a 9 1/2 hour tour through downtown and Lynn Canyon. Erik, the tour guide, is Danish, 76 years old, and has been organizing this tour, as well as another one on Fridays, for a whopping 23 years from April to November. And he doesn't get a penny for it, because the tours only cost as much as the transportation and entrance fees. He simply enjoys getting to know people and knows everything (really everything) about the city. Before his retirement, he worked as a bus driver and part-time fitness trainer, and he knows the city like the back of his hand. And at 76 years old, he still has more energy and power than we do. He uses the winter for relaxation and to travel himself, he has already visited 106 countries.

On Tuesday morning just after nine o'clock we started. We were a small group of only eight people, so we got to know each other quickly. First, we walked along the waterfront towards Yaletown. There, Erik told us that the entire area by the harbor (see photo, roughly marked) used to be an industrial area with many railway tracks running along it. During the Expo in Vancouver in 1986, the entire industry was relocated and the Expo site was built on this area. However, at some point, the Expo was over and the buildings were dismantled. The land belonged to the city at that time and they decided not to divide it, but to sell it all to one person or company. The area remained vacant for nine years until an investor from Hong Kong was found who bought the entire property. If you now expect an incredibly high sum - no, wrong idea. The area was sold for a whopping 150 million dollars (even then a joke). And the cost of refurbishing the area - the railroad and industry had left the soil contaminated - remained with the city. Today, there are over 60 skyscrapers and dozens of other buildings on this huge property. The most affordable apartments in downtown today start at $300,000, in the skyscrapers they start at $3-4 million, of course, only the 'bad' apartments without a water view. Otherwise, you're easily at 5-10 million. The investor is probably still laughing about the deal today.

After our tour through downtown and a stop at a sandwich shop to prepare for lunch, we took the bus to North Vancouver to Lynn Canyon Park. Through the green forest - Vancouver is surrounded by a temperate rainforest, which is why it is always green here in winter as well - we went to a small river where we had our lunch break. Afterwards, we continued through the forest to the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, which is located about 50 meters above the valley floor and has a length of 48 meters. It consists of steel cables anchored in the ground and wooden planks. As I have a healthy dose of fear of heights, this part of the tour was quite nerve-wracking for me. But we all made it and then continued on the other side through the forest.

On our way back to downtown, we didn't take the bus, but the Seabus, a ferry that connects the two sides of Vancouver every 15 minutes.

Since our tour took place on October 31st, one thing will stay in my memory especially. Halloween :) I can't tell you how many people in costumes we saw that day. Not just in the evening on the way to some party. No, all day long, walking around in full costume, even at work. From sailors, Santa Claus, and the Cookie Monster to Batman and unicorns, everything was represented.

The last stop on our tour was the Vancouver Public Library. The building is reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome and houses 2.67 million media. It won an award a few years ago as the most beautiful library in the world. It is a really beautiful building and the fact that it is free for everyone to use is even better.

After the long tour, we were exhausted in the evening and just quickly got something to eat before we collapsed onto the bed.