Nudes and Riots

A weird and whacky day in a weird and whacky city.

Wandered downtown to join another free walking tour - this time to Gastown. Gastown is the original part of the city, named after Gassy Jack. He was known as 'Gassy' because of his love for talking, and he had a suburb named after him as he was the first publican in the settlement. Now that just sets the scene for the whole city.

The tour guide was Ali again, and we headed off only to encounter one of the main city streets we went to head down being closed off, and converted into a huge movie set. Seems that Vancouver has a large film industry, and up until recently was the third biggest location in North America behind Los Angeles and New York. We didn't find out what film they were making, but we guessed that it was probably an apocalypse type movie, as the whole street had been made filled with rocks and snow (some real, some fake), and had a full scale river flowing down the middle of it between the high rises. The work that went into it, and the materials that they used were amazing. I hope it was used for more than just a brief scene.

Got down to Gastown, and had lots of history explained to us. Seems that they are quite proud of their propensity as a city to riot, mostly over causes, but sometimes just for fun. Supposedly there have been at least 10 major riots in the city over the last 100 years, and they are not just talking about kicking a few rubbish bins over. The last one was in 2011 when they lost the final of the Stanley Cup to Boston. Yep, that's worth a riot. At least 140 people were reported as injured during the incident, one critically; at least four people were stabbed, nine police officers were injured, and 101 people were arrested that night. 17 cars and several buildings were set alight. Police recommended 1,204 criminal charges against 352 suspected rioters.

The interesting thing is they don't seem to be at all embarrassed. It's just part of being in crazy Vancouver. There were riots in Gastown in the early days too, and the Lord Mayor built a new City Hall way out in the suburbs so that protesters had no downtown focal point to rally at.

One of the most famous riots was the 1971 Marijuana Riots in the centre of the city when 79 protesters were arrested as police charged civilians on horseback and beat them with riot batons. Turns out that most of the injured were uninvolved tourists wandering around the city, and the subsequent enquiry was scathing of the police. They are so proud of the riot that they still hold a gathering each year to commemorate it, and that they have a huge picture of the riot hanging in a local mall. The strange thing is that they didn't have an original photo of it, so they lovingly re-created it with actors and horses, right down to the detail of genuine 1971 Wrangler jeans.

After our tour, and a lovely Lebanese lunch at one of the recommended restaurants in Gastown, we hiked across town to Granville Island again to pick up the afternoon tour there. Ali's girlfriend this time, and yep, you guessed it, she is Australian, though she was coy about it in front of the other tour people. Guess its a credibility thing. We had wondered why Ali had been telling us of his long visit to Australia last year, but now we know.

Whilst walking around on the tour we heard lots of yelling and tooting. Surely not another riot. No, it wasn't. Just a group of about 100 nude cyclists riding around, complete with a full (clothed) police escort. Only in Vancouver. Found out later that it's the day of the annual World Naked Bike Ride. Now I'm sure you were all participating comfortably wherever you are, but here it was 5 degrees and raining, so the turn out shrivelled.

Wandered around the public market on the Island again, and picked up a few things to take on the cruise before we headed home on the ferry-taxi, and watched the whole of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games opening ceremony on the big screen in the apartment. We watched it with new eyes, and appreciated a lot of the culture and segments a lot more this time around.