Welcome to Gastown, Part One

Blue Jays weekend games start early out here on the left coast. 10 am!  This is seriously cramping my habitual Sunday morning blogging routine! I’m only part way kidding. But I cannot miss an inning of our revamped “all-in” edition of the Jays so this post will out of necessity be just a brief introduction to one of my most favourite neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Gastown.

Please let me also preface this piece with an admission. I am out of practice when it comes to photo adventures! This past Friday I had all the best intentions to get up early, catch the Skytrain downtown and spend my holiday day happily snapping away at every nook and cranny of historic Gastown. Instead, I woke up late, missed breakfast, missed all my transit connections and wound up downtown just in time for a mid-afternoon patio lunch. Let’s just say that I found people watching on the trendy patio of Chill Winston to be the best option for a tired, hot red-head on this day.

I did however capture some snaps of cozy patios, hip interior design stores, and various angles of my favourite building in Vancouver, the Woodward’s Building (this is a story in itself and it will likely appear in next week’s edition of this blog). I will share all of these photos and stories in future posts. Today I thought I would start with a photo I took just on the edge of Gastown not far from Waterfront Station, the hub of rail and water transport in Vancouver. This statue, called The Angel of Victory, commemorates our WWI and WWII soldiers who left their jobs at the Canadian Pacific Railway to fight overseas in the Great Wars. I will leave you with the plaque quotation as it is both stirring and beautiful:

“To commemorate those in the service of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company who, at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardship, faced danger, and finally passed out of sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice , giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten. 1914-1918. 1939-1945.”