A day off in Vancouver

in Vancouver for work

(Original entry date from February 2017)

I lived here eight years ago but apparently that is long enough to forget where everything is. Including where I used to live and where I used to work. I thought I remembered the layout of downtown Vancouver, but my memories only came in snippets, and I found myself getting lost more often than I thought I would - standing on a street corner, utterly disoriented as to what direction was where. Sometimes I could glimpse the water....but the ocean surrounds downtown on three sides. Sometimes I would see the mountains. Where were those? For some reason, I can usually find my way around if I can see the sky. But the tall skyscrapers and condos loomed above me and I could not remember where I had come from.

But what I did remember was where my favourite food places were.

I hit up the food court at the H-Mart downtown Vancouver where I used eat all the time because I was a cheap student missing my mom's Korean food. I ordered the last chajangmyun that was available, basically Korean spaghetti if you substitute Italian tomato sauce for black bean sauce. The small child who wanted to order it after me was NOT happy.

but I was so happy with my chajangmyun

unhappy child with no chajangmyun

I also met up with some girl friends at Chewy's for some tasty tasty British Columbia oysters. Unfortunately, there's been a problem with BC oysters being tainted this year, so we ended up being served oysters from Prince Edward Island. They were still delicious but it was kind of funny.

Vancouver also seems to be all about arugula grilled cheese sandwiches, which I feel like is pretty symbolic about the kind of thing that Vancouver does to food.

On the one morning that it didn't rain, I went for a jog around Stanley Park, which was full of tourists, couples jogging with mathcing backpacks (soooo romantic :D !) and Korean families carrying large selfie sticks, all enjoying the sea air and ocean view and all serving as interesting obstacles on my running route.

 

Vancouver is also always a great opportunity to visit my mother's side of the family. My grandparents loaded me up with so much dried squid to bring to bring back home, I'm sure I looked like such an Asian stereotype, multiple plastic bags of dried squid on the SkyTrain.

my grandmother, always feeding

my cousin has gotten really tall

Most of my trip was spent working (as I was there on business), but during one of my breaks, I took a walk to the harbourfront, just for a chance to lay my eyes on the ocean and the mountains. Despite my family roots here, I never grew up here but I always miss the mountains and the oceans. No matter how long I've been away from this city, I never forget how much I love it.

selfies with my super cute cousin

The docks in winter

I went for a walk one bright, sunny but still cold afternoon. I headed down to the docks to enjoy the view of the frozen Arctic ocean in winter time.

Last week had been a tough week for the community of Cambridge Bay. We were hit with the three day blizzard. The post office has also remained closed all week.  With the post office and the convenience store forced to stay closed due to a break in, we could not receive or send mail, nor did we have a place to buy basic supplies like Tylenol after the grocery stores closed at 7PM.

So for me, it was nice to get out of the house after the blizzard and enjoy the sunny weather, out on the ice.

It's not obvious where the ocean is in the winter time when everything is frozen. You could easily mistake the frozen ocean as more land.  But the sight of the ships and boats frozen in the ice is unmistakable, and a very beautiful sight to see.  The larger majestic ships like the Martin Bergmann looked frozen not just in the ice but in time as well.

more boats parked at ht dock, waiting for the spring thaw

I also came across a patch of ice with shells from fireworks that had been set off.

In other news, a newspaper from Greenland, the Arctic Journal, recently published my piece about Cambridge Bay's blizzard last week! You can read it here.

fall's frost

Cambridge Bay is looking pretty frosty these days! This is what the Arctic ocean looks like right now.  We are still waiting for a barge ship to come in to bring our yearly supplies, so it'll be interesting to see the ship make its way in to a frozen bay. My understanding is that the Coast Guard will send its ice breaker ship ahead to lead the way.

The frost, snow and ice all make for very beautiful scenery, however.

The Story of North Cape Cod

Sometimes you only catch a fish when you aren't expecting to. Or while you're trying to catch a seal.

"Bye, honey, I'm going kayaking!" I said to my husband while he lay on the couch, playing computer games on his laptop.

"Are you going to fish from your kayak?" my husband asked, looking at the fishing rod I held in my hand.

"Nah," I said, "I figure we'll pull our kayaks up on some beach for a rest and I'll cast a few lines there."

"Are you going to bring your tackle?" he asked me.

"I won't need anything," I said, "We won't catch anything. I never do."

"Well, there's a first time for everything," my husband said, as it turned out, ominously.

I met up with my friends on the shore and we set out on the Arctic ocean in our kayaks and canoe. There was no wind that night, so the water was still; you could see all the way to the bottom in some parts, and our kayaks held the illusion of sliding over glass. I marvelled at how smooth the waters were, at how they came alive and pulsed in response to the motor boats that passed occasionally again, and then became still once more.

Now that the ocean ice had all melted away in the bay, we were able to bring our kayaks out farther towards West Arm. We stopped at one of my favourite beach spots. I used to call it Lonely Beach, but have been thinking lately that I should start giving these beaches better names. But what? Garbage Beach? Shale Beach? I waited for an idea to come.

I cast my reel into the water and waited for something to bite. I was testing out a new theory. I had heard that someone in town had caught some char in West Arm, although I didn't know why the fish would be hanging around a dead end.  I thought maybe this new beach might be a good fishing spot, because while the immediate shoreline allowed for you to wade in the water knee deep, there was a sudden drop off in the ocean floor where it suddenly fell away some two hundred metres.  The idea of accidentally slipping off that ocean ledge terrified me, but I thought maybe that would be a good place for fish to hang out, on their way to going to West Arm, for whatever reason they'd be going there.

I cast my line a couple of times but had no luck.  One time I dislodged a rock with my hook. Another time I pulled out some seaweed. I guess that was food - Koreans love mi yuk gook - but not exactly the dinner catch I had been hoping for these past days.  I put down my rod and gave up.

Instead, I started paying attention to some action that was happening some hundred feet away in the water.  There was something moving around in the water and breaching the surface occasionally, but I couldn't see what it was.

"Is it a whale/" I said.

"Maybe a seal?" B suggested.

"I want to catch it!" my friend Christine said, and grabbed my fishing rod.

I was starting to explain to her that we probably can't catch a seal with a fishing rod - that it would probably pull her into the water over the dreaded ledge - and that on the other hand, there was plenty of driftwood lying around that we could possibly use as a club...but then the line started to tug and Christine started to shriek.

"I CAUGHT A FISH!"

In her excitement, Christine threw the rod down on the shore and started dancing. "I caught a fish! I caught a fish!"

B was pretty quick thinking and swooped down to grab the fish and detach it from the hook before it could swim back into the ocean, while Christine danced.  He offered the cod to Christine but she declined, as it was still squirming around.

"I don't want to touch it," she protested. "I caught a fish! I caught a fish!"

still too grossed out to actually hold it

Then we were faced with the fact that we weren't actually equipped to bring a fish home.   I had assumed that we weren't going to catch anything, remember?   I had....a life jacket.  I had...a wet bag. I had....the inside of my kayak, but there was no way we were going to be kayaking home with a flopping around under my skirt between my legs.

Eventually we remembered the storage compartment in our kayak and kept it there.  But in Christine's kayak, because, as I pointed out, "She caught it! It's her problem."

We had a relaxing paddling trip back to the main shore, where I quietly reflected on the darkening clouds in the sky and hoped that the fish that lay inside the kayak was, indeed, dead.  Off in the distance, some kids fishing off the dock by the Martin Bergmann also caught a cod fish, but it was much smaller than Christine's.

Once we returned to our base on the shore, we were faced with the dilemma of how we were going to bring the fish home.

"I have a plastic bag in the sea can," I suggested helpfully, not mentioning the part that it currently held my underwear.

But when I checked the sea can, I realized that I had not brought the plastic bag, which means I also had not brought any spare underwear. Man, was I ever unprepared for this trip.

We tried putting it in a box that used to hold cans of soda pop, but it got soggy quickly.

Eventually we "borrowed" a plastic box that belonged to one of the teachers that were away for the summer.  It worked well and Christine was able to bring her cod fish home, the very first fish she had ever caught. Also, I finally came up with a good name for the beach we had found: North Cape Cod.

trying to add it to Google Maps...

an expert teaches us how to filet a char using a traditional ulu knife

swimming in the arctic ocean: Cambridge Bay's Polar Bear Dip 2014

Yesterday, Cambridge Bay held its annual Polar Bear Dip. This is a fundraiser to raise money to build a new multiplex recreation building, and it involves the bravest residents of the Nunavut community running into the freezing ocean, while the more sensible residents stay dry on shore barbecuing burgers.

I did it last year, and it was cold.  This year, it was still cold.

An ambulance with paramedics, waiting just in case...kind of scary

Last year, we had done it on one of the hottest days in August. And it was still really cold. This year, the weather was 7°C, and the Arctic ocean was 4°C. The ice had just melted last week. It was going to be interesting.

getting ready to go in the water

Polar Bear Dip 2014 participants, gathering their courage

Ready...get set...go!

and here's the video...

Right here, I am saying, "Why did we do this?"

The water was really cold, of course. It was fine when I was up to my ankles...probably because I was cheating, just a little, with my kayaking boots.  But once my legs and arms and torso went in, everything went tingly and intensely painful like a bunch of tiny needles pressing into my skin. I could tell you that my initial reaction was NOT "How lovely...let's stay in the water."  I wanted to get out. Immediately.

Earlier this month, my friends saved a young boy who was drowning in the water.  Having now gone for my first swim this year without a wetsuit, I have all more awe and appreciation for what they did.  Willing yourself to remain in that freezing cold water is almost impossible; I don't know how they managed to not only stay in that water, but rescue a drowning boy while the currents pushed them away and their clothes and boots weighed them down.

Luckily this time, the paramedics weren't needed at all and everyone came out of the water, screaming but laughing, a little proud of themselves for doing something a little crazy but fun.

Read the Nunatsiaq News' account of the story here