The “urban” city of Vancouver was situated by a newly built railroad hub, sideswiping a dispossessed waterside village of Port Moody more South, which was abandoned after speculators bought up all the land there. Claims squatters, railroad types, miners, hunters and trappers mixed freely in the old Vancouver areas, the closest Canada had to a “Wild West”. Modern travelers can see this polyglot settlement in the city layout and street map.

Vancouver has the best of all travel destinations. Mountain, sea, sun and land combine to offer endless options and attractions. The city walker visitor to Vancouver will be kept just as busy as the rural sightseer, and the sports maven with snowboard in hand will be just as challenged by the elements as the ice fisherman.

Early Western Canadians lived hard and played hard, promoting hard work, religion, cultural appreciation and respect for the scenery living around them for future generations. Squamish and other Indian tribes left fruitful contributions to ongoing humanity living in peaceful cohabitation with the beauty of British Columbia’s exteriors.

Western Canada wasn’t built in a day. Lightning justice and Injuns, gunslingers and wealthy resort towns, a burgeoning Chinese immigrant population and the detritus of European emigrates mixed with the newly wealthy and privileged. The language and cultural differences co-exist in Vancouver and throughout Canada today.

Early settlement of the Vancouver area stemmed from land and mineral discoveries with accompanying mining and industrial flash development. Much of the color of Vancouver area and surrounding  regional cities comes from original development when trains and miners flashed out West hungry for land, wealth, and adventure.

Gassy Jack Deighton is the one personality emerging from the cobblestoned downtown heart of old Vancouver, the “Granville” district. Saloons were prosperous business back in the day, and many architectural features and decor followed this school of elegance. Modern hotels like the five-star Wedgewood would make Gassy Jack’s eyes pop.

The Vancouver Art Gallery and Law Courts likewise convey a mood of elegance and refinement that contributes with the provincial scenery to build an effect of splendor and finesse (like the region’s wines!). A visitor to Vancouver might find themselves walking the Stanley Park Seawall at dawn and ending the day sipping fine wine after kayaking through cliffside coves and inlets, or sightseeing the coast from a freighter.

The underground steam system wows visitors to Vancouver, possibly because it is little known. The steam clock and steam whistle create a unique geographic marker travelers remember. The “Gastown” neighborhood also enclosed Steamtown, a reworked shopping venue. Brick gold rush money arranged the Byrnes Block area where the Alhambra luxury hotel once charged a whole dollar for a nightly stay. The Gaoler’s Mews makes for slightly Tower of London intrigue, with the nearby Hotel Europe standing a flatiron in the old civic area.

Many from other countries view the population of Canada as English or Quasi-European, yet a diversity exists between cultures. The Sun Yat-Sen Chinese gardens attest to diversity of Vancouver then and now. But surrounding areas of Vancouver hold interest such as Hollyhock retreat on Cortes Island, Nimmo Bay adventure tourism, the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, and the Gulf Islands. Mountain biking, celebrity watching, sailing, and mountain climbing are all options unless travelers want to relax and enjoy deluxe hotel amenities.

Golfing is a religious experience for many at Greywolf Golf Course at Invermere, British Columbia. Greywolf’s “cliffhanger” holes challenge the best resort golfers and allow for a winter alpine sports village that replaces golf with skiing.

In contrast, the snowy mountain climes offer heli-skiing and mountain based snow hiking treks. So much of Western Canada is an exterior visual paradise outdoor sports are a pleasure an not a chore. Options for daytrips extend in every direction. Excursions into rockface islands or Pacific Rim trails are equally enjoyable. Inward passage ferries journey around the Pacific Coast of Western Canada, leaving visitors with fishing, yachting, or touring options.

French missionaries planting vines in the eighteenth century would be gratified to learn that Canada’s Okanagan Valley is one of the most recognizable appellations in the extremely competitive global wine market. Wine tasting daytrips from Vancouver and extended vinotourism to enjoy the Okanagan Valley are a special privilege of every Canadian visitor and resident.

1. University of British Columbia Museum

Scout out the history and legacy of this Northern America learning institution where Canadians have been educated about their culture from its inception to the present. Online exhibits allow Internet users to enjoy massive historic slideshows and the Museum has many feelers into regional museums and their projects and exhibits.

2. Pacific Rim National Park

Water access to the Pacific Rim opens up endless options. Capilano Canyon and Mount Seymour Provincial Park are surrounding the Pacific Rim and its sizeable array of outdoor sports activities. Parasailing, camping, hiking, mountain climbing, and hiking.Westernmost of all Canadian parks, Pacific Rim is a formidable daytrip worthy of a few days if possible. Pacific Rim is now made up from botanical conservancies,” “biodiversity areas inclusive of all heritages” and provincial parks open to the public.

3. Great Bear Rainforest Park

Ecotourism, logging, and native Indian activism have made a hybrid preserve/attraction that visitors can enjoy. A grizzly bear sanctuary endorsed by many green organizations, the old growth watershed protectionism reflects well with Canadians, and tourists fed up with pollution.Stripped streams and Tweedsmuir Trail now can recover from rampant human devastation.

4. Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre

The Vancouver Aquarium entertains some of the most visitors of any attraction in Vancouver and for good reason. Special emphasis on Northwest Pacific marine life and bordering Arctic with animals from these regions makes a fresh learning impression on travelers.

5. Art Gallery/Robson Square

A general city gallery and specific artistic exhibit rewards art lovers and city travelers alike.Look for special exhibits featuring Canadian artists and check out the gift shp for that rare print or poster.

6. Stanley Park

Cruise the seawall or rollerblade through Stanley Drive, here is a greenward space in a modern city without blight or degentrification. Stanley Park is a great place for “chilling”, relaxed exploration and enjoying fair weather and jogging or sports outings. Bike paths allows for some challenging rides.

7. Harbor Cruise

Various points in Vancouver showcase best from a water vantage point.The Lost Lagoon bird sanctuary, Hallulujah Point, Prospect Point, and marina views make any boat ride an enjoyable trip. Logging was such a huge mainstay of British Columbia’s beginnings almost every park, mountain ridge, and cove of unceared land is full of tall trees. Moisture in the climate prevents the fires that would otherwise burn the lumber forests, and vast clearances were necessary before the marina and Vancouver city proper could be organized.

8. Granville Island

Emily Carr is one of Canada’s most famous artists, and her Vancouver origins are celebrated by the Emily Carr College fo Arts and Design on Granville island. This public space built on a  landfill is a bonus island to Vancouver proper, recognizing Vancouver’s past. Industrial buildings and theaters, a public market, a marina and people browsing around make a unique visitation occasion.

9. University of British Columbia/Simon Fraser University

Universities and schools in Canada received some of the best of formal architecture and design sophistication.Enjoy the gardens and architecture of these Vancouver schools and check out what theater, art and music exhibits and gigs are playing their venues. Check out student art exhibits and music performances.

10. Grouse Mountain

This aerial tram ride tops an excursion into Canada proper. North Shore sky dining, hikes, breathtaking views and sightseeing bring the Grouse Mountain country fun to the city visitor. Grouse Mountain is one of many unspoilt park like attractions that make Canada a preferred vacation and retirement destination. Look for buses and group trips with activities planned to make the most of any Grouse Mountain adventure.

11. Whistler

Blackcomb Mountain has been the starting point for many a stunning Nordic sport career. Ski resorts like Whistler operate for luxury and sports fans looking for great runs and great dining and shopping. The site of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Whistler has groomed mountain runs and rustic cafes nestled next to bunny slopes and luxury boutiques. Whistler will have upcoming music, theatre and sports events to inaugurate new businesses, dwellings and attractions to the Olympic season.

12.Fort Langley National Historic Site

Fort Langley is family fun for any day tripper from Vancouver. The Hudson Bay Company in 1858 was bucking for the capital in this neck of the still wild-frontier of British Columbia. Fishing overtook trapping and hunting as the main trade good and the authentic stockade and storehouse make a stunning visitor’s trip. Colonial America and early provincial Canadian settlements have marked similarities. The oldest non-native structure in British Columbia, Fort Langley has costumed “characters” guiding visitors and enhancing the experience.

Fort Langley mimics early Colonial American forts, with a need to provide shelter and armed protection for settlers eking out a living in the new wilderness. Everything had to be made locally that could be, and the building plans and structures that survive illustrate this. Coopers making barrels, occasional tarders and hunters, homsteaders passing through, and laborers for the salmon fisheries needed a secure source of operations, and the Fort Langley site is food for thought.

Canada as a resort travel and retirement destination is familiar to many, but visitors to the Vancouver part of British Columbia discover another side. Western Canada was more thinly settled than the Canadian Eastern provinces, leaving a population and settlement boom until the mid 19th century to population areas later to become villages and townships. The unspoilt  Western Canada coast and Vancouver Island, national parks, Vancouver metropolitan city life and museums make for a stimulating and densely packed vacation schedule.

The breadth of choices for things to do in Vancouver and surrounding areas can surprise first time and repeat visitors alike. The early Canadian property and homesteading laws led to a settlement of Western Canada and Vancouver centered around towns in particular.  After the Granville townsite became Vancouver proper, a logging fire laid waste to most of what was left, explaining the preservation of the surviving Gastown. Usually fires in Western Canada were prevented by the temperature and climate, which positioned areas like British Columbia as such logging and lumber supply powerhouse regions.

After the historic district tours, a family picnic at Stanley Park might be just the ticket. If one family member wants to skateboard, and another wants to bike, and a few want to settle and read, while others want to frisbee, a trip to this very popular park is recommended. Discover the fun of just relaxing in a new place, or meet up with people you see along these green spaces and robust seawall paths. Tourists like to grab lunch fare at Granville Island and picnic at Stanley Park in style. Bike rentals, park shuttles, the Vancouver Aquarium and dining and eye opening views make Stanley Park a daytrip or more in itself.

Vancouver is located in Western Canada, not quite on the Pacific Ocean in the Vancouver “lowlands” due to a system of land extensions and peninsular bodies, bays and the odd island that make up the lowlands and waterlands next to coastland Canada. For many smaller municipal towns and villages in Western Canada today, planned growth is resisted for a rural preservationist perspective of residential living. A fluctuation in real estate values has left certain areas very affordable for retirement or income property investment.

Just the names of areas like Banff in Alberta and Icefields Parkway summon  imagined vistas of outdoor scenery splendor. Canada’s Westernmost provinces were born of railroad routes into vast mountain ranges, tall trees, and pristine lakes with luxury hotels that stunned visitors. Exporting scenery is a national Canadian pastime, nowhere more so than in British Columbia and Vancouver outlying areas. Boating trips and extended hikes, camping, fishing and trail adventures reward every dollar spent triple value for fresh air, unspoilt country,

Burrard Inlet is a familiar name and reference to most of suburban Vancouver and environs. Vancouver itself reaches into the interior somewhat, allowing easy train access. The overland rail trip from Toronto, Eastern Canada and Nova Scotia to the British Columbian Vancouver area is a celebrated Rockies stunner. Waterway travel to access any island and shore attractions makes a marina (like Vancouver’s) almost a necessity. The Queen Charlotte Islands and other seacoast destinations are reachable within hours by helicopter form Vancouver.

Settlement by towns happened long after shantytowns of miners and coolie camps sprung up to support whatever logging and building companies had been established. Watery inlets traversed mixed coastal coves and peninsular bodies which made for tricky portage. The Smoky Mountains and the nearby Okanagan Valley make for beautiful scenery and Whistler convenient alpine sports. Intracoastal access by train and roadway mixes secluded spots and daytrip ideas aplenty. Vinotourism, extreme adventure, relaxation and reflection, and alpine and mountain sports abound.

Cultured Vancouver visitors will enjoy learning about the earliest settlers of Western Canada, prehistoric and more recent native indians who left plenty of clues about their living preferences and practices all over British Columbia. The University of British Columbia anthropology exhibits craft a detailed portrait of early Western Canada and the the inhabitants who acknowledged and valued the resources of the area. Totem and deities, Canadian ancient artifacts and relics are knowledgeably shared with an inquiring and interested public.