Shady Island

‘I’m Slim Shady, yes I’m the real Slim Shady                                                                            All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating.                                                                           So won’t the real Slim Shady please stand up. . .’

Grouse Mountain

Now I don’t know about you dear reader, but when someone mentions the chance to see a ‘Lumberjack show’ to me, all I can see is a glorious vision of red plaid shirts, rugged beards and muscular torsos. I don’t stop to think. I just go.

And so it was I found myself on a train, boat and bus heading out to North Vancouver’s own Grouse Mountain. Hayden had suggested it for its ski lift, raptor shows, bears, incredible views and lumberjacks! The views he promised me were spectacular, the wildlife amazing and the lumberjacks not only revved up thier chainsaws, manhandled their logs but mounted long poles in contests of pure muscle. All of which sounded like I’d have enough euphemisms to last for the rest of the trip. I was very excited!

The journey up the mountain is in a cable car, reminiscent of many a James Bond encounter and seventies disaster movie.

 

 

Cable car of doom

It’s almost impossible to stop yourself from imaging the worst, or that you will at least find yourself clinging to a broken cable scrambling over pushchairs and American tourists in a bid for safety. To help with that they do like to tell you how far up you are but forget to say the car will swing quite violently as it crosses over the intersections. I honestly caught myself doing a quick assessment of my fellow passengers. Thankfully there was a large group of silver haired septuagenarians from one of the cruise ships. My odds were looking o.k.

Now Vancouver that day was a fine May morning, 24 centigrade, sunny with a little cloud. The journey up the mountain apart from perilous had some pretty amazing views.

 

 

‘Blue sky’ views on way up

But what I’d totally forgotten (which, I know, is glaringly obvious) was that I was going to the top of a mountain. To the summit. The sort of mountain that from a distance is beautifully snow peaked. Quite high in fact. So yes, when we reached the top it was a chilly 12C, covered in snow and basically in a cloud.

 

 

‘No sky views’ at top

The chair lift to the very summit was closed, the paths had been cleared but there was a cold and eerie fog leaving visibility at about eight metres. I wandered a bit to see if there was a timetable for the Lumberjack show or sign saying ‘this way to pure brawn’. It was difficult to see. There was at least a large cafe, gift shop and sporting apparel outfitters so if I was stranded in some desperate survival movie, at least I wouldn’t have to eat any of my own body parts. I went to find an information booth.

It was not good news. ‘Where can I find your world famous lumberjack show?’ I asked the girl at the desk. (In all their advertising it says ‘world famous’. Exciting eh?) ‘oh um it starts tomorrow, they just had a rehearsal this morning’ (my shoulders sagged) ‘Really?!’ ‘Yeah it’s just the season doesn’t really start till tomorrow’ (I can feel the letter writing ‘disgruntled of sussex’ start to unleash) (as passionate an emotional state as David Banner’s don’t-make-me-angry but almost imperceptible to the Johnny Foreigner) ‘Oh,’ I mumble. ‘What about the raptors?’ ‘No sorry’ ‘Chair lift?’ ‘No it’s shut at the time being’ ‘Death slide?’ I offer (despite this being the very last thing I would do). ‘No sorry, sorry have you come a long way?’ I stare at her and my mouth opens then shuts again. My inner monologue has gone into a vitriolic tirade, yes, yes I might have come a bloody long way via Australia actually. But I outwardly sigh and say ‘oh never mind thank-you’ then turn on my heels and whisper ‘so essentially a very expensive coffee shop?!’ Which is enough to satisfy my confrontational angst.

The good news was despite there still being snow the bears had woken up from hibernation and were in their enclosure. They were orphaned bears who had been saved as cubs but too reliant on humans were now kept in the bear sanctuary. So you could go and see them, if you could find the enclosure. The one helpful thing was that there were big painted bear tracks on the paths to show the way. They past the now mournful looking Lumberjack amphitheatre.

 

 

Apocalyptic remains of the World Famous Lumberjack show

I was, it’s fair to say, quite chilly by now. It was a strange sensation after all the sweaty heat I’d grown accustomed too but I laughed as I realised I was actually wearing exactly the same outfit I’d worn for my river cruise in Bangkok. This time I was very glad of the scarf (And at least no one was saying ‘aren’t you hot in that?’) But I soon forgot my shivers when I turned a corner and saw the bears. Not in the wild I know, but very much in their natural environment. They were stunning.

 

 

Grizzlies . . .just woken up.

I watched them, enraptured for a while, these are the fellas you don’t want to meet in the woods. There is no one clear piece of advice for surviving a grizzly attack. You can’t out run, out climb, or out swim them and they most definitely have a better right hook. If you’ve annoyed them they won’t care if you do or don’t look them in the eye. They won’t care if you have a baby with you or try to make yourself look big or offer them a marmalade sandwich. Although a marmalade sandwich might be your best bet.

Slightly frozen now (in my linen shirt!) I walked back to have a look at the  ‘spectacular view’ I’d been told about. It was certainly something:

Panoramic view from the top of Grouse Mountain

I decided it was time for a hot chocolate and the gift shop.

There were fewer tourists around now, although to be fair I could only see the ones within five metres anyway. But there were a prolific amount of hill runners, locals who do the ‘grouse grind’ (I know). They run up the mountain and get the cable car down. In fact from this view all you could see were the first two rows of trees and then emerging from the forest at regular intervals sweaty lycra clad uber humans bounding up to the cafe checking their fit bits (oo-er missus).

I went to get the cable car down and felt over dressed for the first time. The conditions had worsened and although the view was scary on the way up, the lack of view going down was an even more frightening prospect. And this time on a quick assessment of my (grouse-grinder) fellow passengers I realised my odds of survival had seriously diminished.

View descending Grouse Mountain

As we descended we gradually emerged from the clouds just in time to see a man standing on top of the intersection. We were told not to worry, he was just going to climb on top of our cable car. Of course he was. Of course. We swung in the air for what seemed ages while hearing bangs and clangs above us expecting at any moment to see a man swing down and crash against the glass. To add to the heart in-mouth-ness the cable car going up had stopped too and all the passengers were staring up at us slight horror on their faces.

 

 

The emerging view of Vancouver and a man about to climb on our roof. . .

So. . .I hadn’t seen Lumberjacks manhandling their logs, I hadn’t seen eagles in flight or a clear view to the coast but if this had been rebranded as a ‘twilight zone experience’ with grizzly bears, ‘world famous cloud’ and ‘actual human jeopardy’, then I couldn’t have been more satisfied!

Intermission

Just by way of an amusing interlude I thought you might like this, from Gas Town in downtown Vancouver (a steam punk’s delight) I give you the steam clock:

 

Shady Island

Shady island is a long thin strip of an island just at the mouth of the Fraser River, off the south Vancouver coast at a place called Steveston. It was an hour and a half to get to by bus but I was excited by the prospect of eating at the wonderfully named ‘shady island seafood bar and grill’. Which was, I imagined, frequented by mackintosh-clad trilby wearing slicks looking ‘shady-as’.

Steveston turned out to be utterly charming. It’s a small town with a busy fishing port, roughly 600 boats work out of the port of Steveston, making it actually the largest commercial fishing harbour in Canada. The salmon industry was once so big in Steveston that the town was also known as Salmonopolis (how great) because of all the canning factories in the area. These factories have since moved to bigger cheaper locations or disappeared entirely due to new refrigeration techniques. It is despairingly  cheaper now to freeze the salmon and fly it to China to be canned than actually do the job locally. But the fishing continues and the busy little harbour has a fresh seaside feel with its old wooden board walk and abundance of fish and chips.

 

The quaint charm of Steveston

If the town looks familiar to you it might be because it is also the fictitious town of ‘Storybrooke’ from the ABC TV series ‘Once Upon a Time’. (No I had no idea either) (but some of you might) It is filmed here in Steveston. So there you go. I will have to seek it out when I return. However I could see why it would be used, it felt very ‘Cabot Cove’ like to me with all its clapper board houses, antique shops and cafes. I could just see Jessica Fletcher cycling past and although it is on the other side of the continent the film makers must have thought the same as ‘Storybrooke’ is supposed to be set in Maine U.S.A.

But I was here for a shady island and shady island seafood bar and grill! It’s actually called Steveston island but is known locally as ‘Shady’. I honestly can’t tell you why, no one had a conclusive answer, (which was a little shady in itself) but it seems the shade and protection of the trees/island is one answer. As recently as the 1920s the island was little more than a sand bar in the river but because of dredging, to help protect the waterfront and divert the river it was gradually built up by silt, damming and a long rock breakwater that runs along it’s  length. It is now a piece of undeveloped natural land home to rare species of plants and many types of birds. Only accessible by low tide it can be hazardous though, tourists and locals have been caught stuck waist deep in the mud and there have been drownings so although it is used by some as a little escape for picnics I decided against wading out to see for myself!

 

The Shady, Shady Island stretching down the Fraser River

So Shady island found, I turned my attention to food. Well quite. I had been excited about eating in the Shady Island Bar and Grill since I discovered its existence online when I was preparing for my adventure. So you can imagine I was somewhat giddy with it. Well dear reader, all I can say is it was like ‘world famous Lumberjack show’ deja vu.

 

The very much closed for the day Shady Island Bar & Grill

I was actually crest fallen. What was going on Vancouver?! Did they know who I was? How far I’d come for an amusingly named cafe? A lumberjack? It wasn’t even a usual occurrence, apparently they were ‘usually’ open on Tuesdays but had clearly seen me coming.(The world revolves around me you understand?) Annnd there had been a seriously disappointing lack of shady characters or behaviour amongst the good people of Steveston. (Although I realised what with all my lingering about and taking photos of shut doors and closed cafes I was probably making up for the shadiness.) So with great hardship I had to eat at Pajos fish and chip stall which as you can see was just awful for me:

 

Really quite fabulously delicious fish n chips and another ‘world famous!’ Who knew?

Apart from the fish and chips cheering me up a bit (well yes, quite a lot then) I found my new ‘best bookshop ever’ in the delightful Steveston Village books and coffee house. Like stepping into . . .um, a book shop, but you see what I mean:

 

And in partaking of one of my favourite travel pass times, reading the local paper, I found something I had been looking for. Shady behaviour. It seems the Mounties are after the shadowy named ‘Dr Poltergeist’. Now not one to make light of criminal behaviour (no really) I was still rather taken with Dr Poltergeist. He has been breaking, entering and ‘meticulously moving objects and re-configuring them in a new location’ (shuffling things about).

He has only terrorised one address, so one can imagine it’s his version of cutting up his ex partners clothes, or selling their stuff on eBay so I kind of admire the effort he’s gone too (or hired someone to go to). Or maybe he was a disillusioned traveller who found the advertised lumberjack show wasn’t on and that the stupidly named cafe was randomly closed? Mmmmmmm it gave me an idea. Would Shady Island Bar and Grill notice the condiments were re-arranged, the forks in the spoons tray, the menus stacked upside down or the napkins folded left to right not right to left? Who knows??

But I know who the Mounties will suspect . . .

and it wouldn’t be me Dr Poltergeist . . . Mu-hah-harrrr (maniacal laugh)

 

 

I’m the REAL slim shady!