Locals know what I’m talking about when I described days that are so clear that you can spot each individual evergreen on the local mountains. Looking North, the Eye of the Wind turns on Grouse while the SkyRide ascends, packed with visitors. It’s the kind of view that makes you pull out your phone to snap a photo. You exhale upon review and mumble softly: “it’s so gorgeous here.” It’s for this reason that I’ve decided to pick through the Miss604 Flickr Pool and showcase mountain views this week, enjoy!

Photo credit: Zorro1968 on Flickr

Photo credit: Ludovic Chabant & Tyler Ingram on Flickr

Photo credit: Judy B The Travelling Eye on Flickr

Photo credit: [travelfox] on Flickr

Photo credit: fotoeins on Flickr

Photo credit: Clayton Perry Photoworks on Flickr

Photo credit: colink. on Flickr

Photo credit: tombreda on Flickr

Photo credit: Judy B The Travelling Eye & Clayon Perry Photoworks on Flickr

Photo credit: rbrtwhite on Flickr

Photo credit: monnibo on Flickr

Photo credit: WinstonWong* on Flickr

Photo credit: [travelfox] on Flickr

As always, please click through on the picture to view more work from each of the photographers and feel free to share your own images with the Miss604 Flickr Pool.

February is the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada‘s “Heart Month” and while they emailed me weeks ago, I haven’t been able to compose myself enough to write about the topic until now.

Photo credit: eych-you-bee-ee-ahr-tee on Flickr – Submitted to the Miss604 Flickr Pool.

It’s been exactly a year since my Oma was rushed to hospital after suffering a heart attack. I met my family in her room at the hospital and didn’t know what to expect. My Oma was indestructible, at least I always thought so. At 89 she would be out in her garden pulling up weeds with her knuckles, making jams and jellies in her kitchen, and keeping up around the house with her great-grandchildren. That day she looked weak and worried. They had to move her to another hospital for a procedure and given a few other conditions, and her current state, we had no idea what to expect. She had another heart attack that sent her into a coma.

We spent days in shifts, rotating in and out of the ICU. I held her hand and listened to the chilling amplified sounds of the device that was helping her heart beat. I’ll never forget that sound as every time I heard one beat, I held my breath until I heard another. I counted dozens of wires attached to devices and pouches at her bedside, her hand and arm swollen from the needles. She had never been admitted to a hospital in her life.

Eventually she was moved out of the ICU and woken up. She enjoyed bragging to us about how she pulled through and how much better she was feeling each day. She had inside jokes with nurses, told them about all of her kids, and watched vases and baskets of flowers light up her window sill. We all knew the much-needed emotional lift wouldn’t last as she had a complication that meant she was never going to get better.

I can’t tell you how much time had passed until she started a steady decline. We suspect she had another stroke. My mother and aunt were constantly at her side and when my sister, cousin, brother, or I would visit we’d take her hand in ours. It would be warm from the previous child’s touch. She passed away in April.

Photo credit: mararie on Flickr

Someone in Canada has a heart attack every 7 minutes. Strokes happen every 10 minutes. Heart disease is the #1 killer of women in Canada and the cause of 1 in every 3 deaths.

This month, if you haven’t already, please take some time to look through the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s online resources. You can take a risk assessment test on the website or through the My Heart & Stroke Health mobile app. You can volunteer, donate, learn to smart tips for eating right, or perform a healthy action.

iPhone application

To promote Heart Month and all of the actions you can take, the Heart and Stroke Foundation is offering up a prize pack valued at $150. This includes a live or virtual nutrition counseling session with a HSF registered dietitian, a heart-healthy cookbook, pedometer, measuring spoons, water bottle, and reusable HSF bag. Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
• Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)

I will draw one winner at 10:00am next Tuesday, February 14, 2012.

The latest census results were released this morning and they showed that in Metro Vancouver, the largest population growth was found in Surrey and Port Moody. From the Surrey Leader: “Surrey’s population grew 18.6 per cent to 468,251, an increase of more than 73,000 since the previous count in 2006. The City of Vancouver gained about 25,000 residents, or 4.4 per cent over the five-year period, to 603,502. Port Moody climbed 19.9 per cent to 32,975.” It would seem Surrey is living up to its slogan, The Future Lives Here.

Statistics Canada map via Surrey Leader

There’s one blog I turn to when it comes to finding out about Surrey’s urban planning, development, and transit strategies. Paul Hillsdon’s Civic Surrey. I first found Paul’s personal blog in November of 2007 and in February of 2008, he launched Civic Surrey.

I wrote this about the promising 18 year-old at the time: “Our local green-powered, transit, political, and Metro Vancouver whiz kid Paul Hillsdon has just launched a new fully Surrey-centric website. Paul’s entries are entertaining, factual, occasionally hard-hitting, and valid in their opinions as a true Surreyite. I’m always pleased to promote anything form my hometown and it’s great to see such a nicely executed source for Surrey talk and content now online.”

Paul has also independently run for City Council and local office a few times since. As the blog’s fourth anniversary rolls by, I encourage you to explore its archives in order to learn more about this ever-changing urban – and still agricultural – centre. Here’s a small sampling of the topics he and contributing author Nathan Pachal have covered:

• Bing Thom wins Design Exchange Award for Surrey Library
• Time to Revive the B-Line in Surrey
• First Phase of Cloverdale’s West Village Revealed
• 54-Storey Tower Joinging City Hall Soon
• Just How Walkable Are Surrey’s Town Centres?
• The Beginning of Surrey’s Financial District?
• … and many more

Photo credit: rbrtwhite on Flickr – Submitted to the Miss604 Flickr Pool.

For a unique photo project, check out Robert White’s Nicholson Road column on Vancouver is Awesome. He provides a small blurb an a photo about a community, park, or area in the region outside of downtown Vancouver.

Drinking Made Easy, the HDNET series that travels around the United States to explore local brews, mixology, and drinking culture, recently found its way North of the 49th for a quick stop in Vancouver.

Steve McKenna and Zane Lamprey. Photo courtesy HDNET.

In each episode, host Zane Lamprey steps behind the bar in various establishments to learn how local drinks are made while co-host Steve McKenna, who has been given the title of “Stunt Drinker”, tries out the concoctions. The two also go head to head during their signature Six Six-Pack Challenges that could be anything from bocce or fencing to racing up the Space Needle in Seattle.

I can’t give away too much about the Vancouver episode but there are shout outs to several BC breweries and wineries, from Vancouver Island to the Okanagan. I had the chance to chat with Steve about the Vancouver episode, the show’s first Canadian feature to air.

“Vancouver was amazing it was one of my favourite stops of Season 2,” Steve told me over the phone from his home base in Richmond, Virginia. His previous trips north of the border were to Montreal as a kid since his family lived just a few hours away. “I had heard a lot about [Vancouver] and I was really excited to go. It definitely did not disappoint.”

Steve McKenna T-Shirt

Steve first started on Drinking Made Easy thanks to host, and his good friend, Zane Lamprey. “Zane brought me into his first show, Three Sheets, by telling crazy drinking stories about his buddy Steve McKenna.” So when Drinking Made Easy started up, Steve was added. “He brought me along as his sidekick. I provide a little bit of comic relief.”

The Vancouver episode is pretty much the “Gastown” episode but Salt, The Diamond, Rogue, the Alibi Room and more represented our city and region very well. Steve specifically mentioned his stop at the Alibi Room and an impressively rare sample from Storm Brewing that you’ll see him try. Discovering that Vancouver, and BC, had a strong (and growing) local beer scene was definitely a nice surprise for him. “It was definitely amazing and a real treat – they had a lot of good beer.”

I asked Chris Bjerrisgaard, Marketing Director of Vancouver Craft Beer Week about the impact the show could have. “I think a show like Drinking Made Easy doing an episode in Vancouver is extremely important to our local beverage industry, every much as important as Diners Drive-Ins and Dives / Eat Street was to the local food culture. These shows are about putting Vancouver on the map and helping showcase our hospitality industry. People need to know that when they come to town they can find quality cocktails, beers, and wines just as easily as they can find beautiful scenery and endless outdoor activity.”

Steve McKenna in Gastown. Photo courtesy HDNET.

On the show Steve is known for his quick chugs of even the finest cocktails but he said they do keep the drinking to when the cameras are rolling. He laughed and told me one his famous quotes is: “I only drink when I’m working”.

When he’s not doing Drinking Made Easy, you can find him behind the bar of The Blue Goat. I had to ask him about his own prescription for a hangover and he said he loves a good Bloody Mary. His specialty is a Bloody Mary that’s ginger-infused with Square One cucumber vodka. Either that or a mimosa which he makes with strawberry muddled basil. “It can turn your frown upside down pretty quick.”

John and I enjoy the show because we actually learn a lot about the destinations through their individual pub culture which is always rich with history — as you’ll also see in the Vancouver episode. “It’s a lot of fun to just see every city, see the bars, hang out with the locals, and hear about each place,” Steve said.

If there’s one place he could visit with the show in the future, Steve told me it would be Alaska. Should Drinking Made Easy make it up to the Yukon, I recommended he become a member of the Sour Toe Cocktail Club in Dawson City. It isn’t for the faint of heart — but might make for some great television.

You can catch the Vancouver episode on HDNET (Shaw digital channel 235) next Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 5:00pm and 8:00pm Pacific. They usually post full show notes online once the episode has aired including links to the liquors or beers that were mentioned, the establishments visited, drink recipes, and fun facts about the city. Tomorrow night’s episode (February 8, 2012) will feature Seattle.

Update The teaser/trailer for the Vancouver episode is up now:

With another year until we get a statutory holiday in BC, February could be looking pretty gloomy at this point. However, with events to celebrate the two year Vancouver 2010 Olympic anniversary, a city-wide festival, a film festival, a comedy fetival, and more, the February 2012 calendar is looking pretty bright.

Photo credit: couloir on Flickr – Submitted to the Miss604 Flickr Pool.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Bill Reid & The Haida Canoe exhibit extended
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Sam Sullivan’s Public Salon
Opening Night: The Marvelous Wonderettes
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Orca Coin Exchange at the Vancouver Aquarium
Team in Training Fundraiser at Library Square
Vancouver Opera’s Be Jewelled cocktail fundraiser
CHF Vancouver’s ID Week Photo Exhibition and Reception
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
City and Slope Festival
Illuminate Yaletown
Friday, February 10, 2012
Opening Day: Cindy Buckshon exhibition at Deer Lake Gallery
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
City and Slope Festival
Illuminate Yaletown
Davis Cup at UBC
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada: Richmond
Public Dreams Dance Party
Vinyl Vaudeville Dinner Cabaret
Tales of the Cocktail on Tour: Vancouver
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
City and Slope Festival
Illuminate Yaletown
Davis Cup at UBC
Red Mitten Weekend at BC Sports Hall of Fame
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Wallace Leung Memorial Scholarship Fund benefit concert
Tales of the Cocktail on Tour: Vancouver
Vinyl Vaudeville Dinner Cabaret
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
City and Slope Festival
Davis Cup at UBC
Red Mitten Weekend at BC Sports Hall of Fame
Valentine Pet Photos for the Surrey SPCA
Port Coquitlam Sunday Coffee Concert
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops

Monday, February 13, 2012
Tales of the Cocktail on Tour: Vancouver
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Tales of the Cocktail on Tour: Vancouver
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Vinyl Vaudeville Dinner Cabaret
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Tasting Plates Vancouver
Vancouver Comedy Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Thursday, February 16, 2012
French Film Festival
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
Vinyl Vaudeville Dinner Cabaret
Vancouver Comedy Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
National Ballet of Cuba’s Don Quixote
Friday, February 17, 2012
Randy Ponzio for the People
Vancouver Wellness Show
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival
National Ballet of Cuba’s Don Quixote
Vinyl Vaudeville Dinner Cabaret
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Trout Lake Community Centre grand opening
“Bill you Murray me?” Group Art Show
Vancouver Wellness Show
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Vinyl Vaudeville Dinner Cabaret
National Ballet of Cuba’s Don Quixote
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Vancouver Wellness Show
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Sea Inside: Art exhibition and workshops
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre

Monday, February 20, 2012
Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival umbrella dance rehearsal
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
JCI Vancouver launch event
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
BCIT Advancing IDEAS
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Dance Centre presents Discover Dance! Strathcona Chinese Dance Company
The Stone Pines album preview concert
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Friday, February 24, 2012
National Aboriginal Achievement Awards
North Vancouver Library Book Sale
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Winterruption on Granville Island
Brazilian Community Association Carnaval 2012
South Burnaby Neighbourhood House fundraiser
North Vancouver Library Book Sale
Vancouver Comedy Festival
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Winterruption on Granville Island
North Vancouver Library Book Sale
French Film Festival
Aesop’s Fables at Carousel Theatre
Chutzpah! Festival
Port Coquitlam Sunday Coffee Concert

Monday, February 27, 2012
Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Small Business BC Successful You Awards
Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival
Chutzpah! Festival
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Pink Shirt Day
Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival
Chutzpah! Festival

Check out the City of Vancouver’s listings for various events honouring Black History Month. Please feel free to submit your own community event listing by contacting me or posting to the Miss604 Facebook wall.

Tourism Surrey recently launched a campaign called 45 in 45 that lists off 45 activities, sights, and events that you can enjoy within 45 kilometers or 45 minutes of the City of Surrey. Through blog posts and social media outreach, they’re promoting BC’s second most populous city as a destination and affordable alternative.

Photo credit: rbrtwhite on Flickr

“Surrey is a fairly central location when you do a 360 degree look around,” says Tourism Surrey’s Jane Stark. “We’ve got the Fraser Valley, White Rock, the USA border, Vancouver, and more.” The focus of the campaign is to promote the city’s hotel offerings, making it the starting point for your family visit, vacation, business trip, or getaway.

Fusion Festival – Photo credit: John Bollwitt & John Bollwitt on Flickr

Fusion Festival – Photo credit: John Bollwitt on Flickr

From parks and recreation, to Surrey Eagles hockey, annual festivals, Crescent Beach, shopping, and award-winning golf courses, Stark also told me they want the idea of “Surrey is closer than you think” to stick in people’s minds.

The site is just getting started but they’re already running a contest with Central City Brewing. Until February 15, 2012 you can post a photo of a beer you’re drinking on Twitter, including @45in45 and @centralcitybrew, for your chance to win a $50 gift card to BC’s Best Brew Pub (according to the 2012 CAMRA Vancouver Beer Awards).

Watch for more promotions over the next few weeks including a few guest posts from yours truly as I support my hometown. Follow 45 in 45 on Twitter or Facebook for more information.

Although yesterday’s numbers haven’t yet been tallied, it’s estimated that 49 million cases of beer were consumed during last year’s Super Bowl¹. While everyone slides back into work this morning I figured an ale-themed archive photo roundup would be in order.

1890 – Employees of Doering and Marstrand Brewery in Mount Pleasant. Archive item# Dist P18.

1912 – Group of local men drinking beer. Archive item# CVA 7-196. Photographer: James L Quiney.

1926 – Men crating beer at Vancouver Breweries. Archive item# CVA 99-3071. Photographer: Stuart Thomson.

All history on Vancouver Breweries leads back to one man: Henry Reifel². He started Brewery Creek on Main and 16th in 1888, he built Canadian Brewing and Malting by 1908, and later amalgamated several companies to form Vancouver Breweries. The brewery as located on 11th and Yew, and was eventually sold to Carling O’Keefe.

Doering & Marstrand Brewery in Mount Pleasant was also sold by Charles Doering and became a part of Vancouver Breweries³. Doering had a saloon on Water Street called the Stag & Pheasant.

1926 – Vancouver Breweries at 11th and Yew. Archives item# CVA 99-3063. Photographer: Stuart Thomson.

1944 – Vancouver Breweries. VPL Accession Number: 15984. Photographer: Leonard Frank.

1932 – Vancouver Breweries. Archive item# CVA 99-2637. Photographer: Stuart Thomson.

1935 – Vancouver Breweries. VPL Accession Number: 11572. Photographer: Leonard Frank.

1935 – Vancouver Breweries. VPL Accession Number: 11570. Photographer: Leonard Frank.

1935 – Vancouver Breweries. VPL Accession Number: 15985. Photographer: Leonard Frank.

1942 – Vancouver Breweries delivery wagon. Archive item# CVA 1184-1531. Photographer: Jack Lindsay.

¹ Source: 680 News
² Source: Chuck Davis’ Vancouver History
³ Source: Chuck Davis’ Vancouver History

It’s been twenty years but the Davis Cup tournament is returning to Vancouver next weekend as Canada takes on France.

Location Thunderbird Sports Centre
Dates February 10 to February 12, 2012
Times 2:00pm daily
Tickets Sold out within 30 minutes, sorry!

Canada is ranked 14th heading into the tournament against 4th-ranked France. Those fortunate enough to have snagged tickets are encouraged to bust out their red and white Canada gear — toques, mittens, scarves, jackets, and more.

Fans are encouraged to cheer loudly and show support for members of the home team including Milos Raonic, Vancouver’s own Vasek Pospisil and Doubles Champion Daniel Nestor.

If you don’t have tickets, you can watch with other fans at Cactus Club locations around the Lower Mainland.

You can also win your way in to Saturday’s event, Men’s Doubles, as Tennis Canada has kindly offered up a pair of tickets to one lucky Miss604 reader. Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
• Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)

I will draw one winner at 10:00am on Thursday, February 9, 2012.

McBarge, the famous floating McDonald’s restaurant from Expo86, is set to reopen. The vessel has been moored in Burrard Inlet for about the last twenty years but following an approval from Mission City Council, it’s getting a new lease on life.

Photo credit: John Biehler on Flickr

The Sturgeons On the Fraser project, which has an estimated value of $10 million, would use the barge to create a floating restaurant, pub and café at the foot of Horne Street adjacent to the former Meeker Cedar Mill site.

Developer Howard Meakin said he was “shell-shocked” when the council approved the third reading of a foreshore rezoning application related to the project…

…Meakin said that more than half a million people live within a 30-minute drive of the site so he expects the restaurant/ barge will become popular with local residents as well as being a draw for people further away because of its history.
[Source: Vancouver Sun]

According to the Vancouver Sun article, the project will take about 18 months to complete, pending further approval for parking access, and will include a marina, offices for fishing and eco-tour operators, as well as a float-plane terminus.

Photo credit: Tyler Ingram on Flickr

Photo credit: sporkist & unk’s dump truck on Flickr

Those who have spent time along the shores of Burrard Inlet, like at Cates Park or Barnet Marine Park, may have spotted this idle giant over the years. My last post McBarge was in 2009 and every so often someone will post a Twitpic from their window on the West Coast Express.

My own photo from Expo86

It’s Expo86 nostalgia factor is huge and the river-front areas of our region are picking up in terms of public access, community development, parks, and dining. I’d love to know — will you check out the McBarge as Sturgeons on the Fraser River in Mission?

This Valentine’s Day you can send a candygram to your sweetheart and support a great cause at the same time. A Loving Spoonful is offering up a candygram service for just $10 that includes a card, your message, two chocolates from Purdy’s, a “Yelpstic” lipbalm, and “Perfect Kiss” mints and a $15 gift card from Shamin Jewellers.

Order your candygrams online and send them anywhere in the country. February 6th is the deadline for deliveries in Eastern Canada and February 9th is the Western Canada deadline — so sign up now! Follow A Loving Spoonful on Facebook and Twitter (tag: #candygram) for more information.

A Loving Spoonful is a volunteer-driven, non-partisan society that provides free, nutritious meals to people living with HIV/AIDS in Greater Vancouver. Every week, all year round for over 19 years, our volunteers deliver approximately 1200 frozen meals and over 250 snack packs to men, women and children who are primarily homebound with AIDS.