Vancouver's reputation as a no-fun city is fading, as it deserves to. And that’s not because of the proliferation of restaurants that have turned into bars or the explosion of pot-selling franchises in every neighbourhood.
I’m talking here about outdoor, fresh air, physical fun, the kind that’s deep in the roots of this jogging/ kayaking/hiking/skiing/biking/skateboarding town and its signature active-wear clothing.
We’ve all cycled the seawall, strolled the dikes and sweated up the Grouse Grind enough times. Now we’re getting some new opportunities, brought to us by entrepreneurs who simply put on a set of “fun lens” glasses and saw what we all look at but never see.
Remember the seven-hour lineups to get on the free zip line in Robson Square during the 2010 Olympics? People like riding on zip lines, which is why they’re paying to ride them at Grouse Mountain, in Whistler, Maple Ridge, Victoria, Sooke, Kelowna, Peachland, Ashcroft, Nanaimo, Revelstoke, Oyama and cities everywhere. Now Vancouver-based Greenheart Canopy Walkway Co., which makes nature-based walkways and eco-attractions around the world, is setting one up – “temporarily” – in Queen Elizabeth Park. Customers will pay $15 to $20 to launch off a tower just west of the Bloedel Conservatory and whiz 190 metres over the old quarry, the highest point in the city of Vancouver.
The Vancouver Park Board is estimating it will make at least $75,000 a year from revenue-sharing.
Over on the North Shore, the buzz has already started about a one-day August 22 waterslide that will send customers splashing 300 metres down Lonsdale from Keith Road to 3rd Street during North Vancouver’s Car-Free Day street festival. It’s being set up by Utah-based Slide the City and will sell rides starting at $15. Coun. Linda Buchanan told the North Shore News that the slide will create “an event that puts the City of North Vancouver on the map as being someplace that’s fun to be and come and hang out.”
Exactly! When residents are having fun, tourists show up.
Coming soon, I’m told, is a business that will escort stair-climbers up the inside stairways on the Lions Gate Bridge to the top of the towers, reminiscent of the wildly popular climb along the girders of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge.
Unfortunately, certain Vancouver Park Board commissioners didn’t read the Fun-Is-Good memo even after they overwhelmingly approved the Queen Elizabeth zip line.
At the same April 27 meeting, they were poised to shut down the Mount Pleasant skateboard park at 16th and Ontario in Vancouver because it was getting used too much. Yup, the clattering of all those young people working on their skateboard tricks was too much for, well, four neighbours (one of them being the Non-Partisan Association campaign organizer). That’s how many calls there were to the police in the past year over late-night noise, which apparently justified pressuring staff to come up with ideas to shut the place up – or down.
Skateboarding, it turns out, is another signature Vancouver activity. PD’s Hot Shop, now at 10th near Alma, is the longest-running skateboard store in Canada. (Founder Peter [P.D.] Ducommun also has a store in Japan.) Canada’s oldest skateboard park is Seylynn in North Vancouver.
Skateboarding still has its punk anarchist roots showing (PD’s tag line is “Skating Since You Were Swimming In Dad’s Nutsack”) but has morphed into another mainstream outdoor activity that attracts locals and tourists alike. There are now 60 skate parks across the Lower Mainland, including the first university campus skate park at UBC. Hootsuite employees are among the regulars at Mount Pleasant.
Fortunately, the Vancouver Park Board felt the heat from the scores of skate-park supporters at the meeting and backed off for another look at the wisdom of shutting down a successful two-year-old recreational hub that caters to kids who might otherwise have their heads in a screen, or worse.
Fun is here to stay, especially when people can’t wait to pay to play.
August 22. Circle the date. •
Peter Ladner ([email protected]) is a co-founder of Business in Vancouver.
