Burnaby Mountain hike

Some time back, a friend and I climbed the five hundred steps up Burnaby Mountain to the park perched above. A view of Burrard Inlet, Belcarra’s Admiralty Point and North Vancouver’s Deep Cove peeked through the trees. 

A hidden park

Myrtle Park wooded area, opposite North Vancouver’s Strathcoma Park, lay hidden behind suburbia. If it wasn’t for two hikers walking towards the entrance I might have missed it completely.

A sight for sore eyes?

An ugly cement structure sat overlooking Indian Arm at the end of North Vancouver’s Malcolm Lowry Trail. It looked like something built during WWII, but it was dated 1916. When Robert Dollar came from California, he constructed this mill site which included homes for key employers and bunk beds for the mill workers. While this was a large operation, all that remained when I visited, was the burner foundation.

Hiking Malcolm Lowry Trail

From North Vancouver’s Cates Park was a hiking trail that followed the shoreline where once author Malcolm Lowry lived in one of the squatters’ shacks during the 1940s. He was the author of Under the Volcano that won the Governor General’s award. I discovered two plaques dedicated to the author along the route.

Faces the wind park

Cates Park was located at the mouth of Indian Arm, a thirty kilometre fiord. Across Burrard Inlet from its stony beach was Burnaby Mountain to the south, and Belcarra Park to the east. With over five hundred fires burning in the province, on the day I visited, the outlook was hazy from smoke drifting in from the interior.

Crazy for birds exhibition

I was ready to exit North Vancouver’s Maplewood Flats when the sound of an exquisite guitar player lured me into a building near the entrance to the bird sanctuary. The 25^thanniversary photography exhibition was in progress when I stepped through the entrance of the Corrigan nature house.

North Shore mudflats

I have a thing for mangroves and mud. Perhaps it’s because of the days I followed in my father’s footsteps as he traipsed through mud catching crabs, sinking into the depths of the smooth, squelching ooze.

Maplewood Flats hiking trail

Located on Vancouver’s north shore, I followed this easy trail, keeping track of the direction I headed because there were no signs to direct walkers back to the exit.

Birdwatchers on patrol

In spite of living only half an hour’s drive from Maplewood Flats Wild Bird Sanctuary, I had only ever driven past heading further a field. This quiet corner of North Vancouver offered excellent views of Burrard Inlet, and I was keen to explore the reserve even though I was no bird watcher.

Art in the woods

Replicas of squatters’ cabins were sculptured along Maplewood Flats off the Burrard Inlet in the exact location where they  originally stood during the 1940s. Hovering over the tidal mud flats, the cabins on stilts housed a community of squatters who, by the 1960s, were hippies, artists and displaced loggers who craved nature and self-sufficiency.