Farmer's Market

During the summer Trout Lake hosts a Farmer's Market on the weekend. It runs on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 2pm starting May 14 and ending October 22. I stopped by one day and was impressed by the vegies and such I saw there.

These markets are a great way for city dwellers to get fresh produce straight from the farm.

But Farmers' Markets aren't a new idea - they are an old idea that has re-emerged. Before the Industrial age it was quite common for these markets to be held and in some countries the markets are not only quite common but larger.

In these modern times the local markets have been replaced by supermarkets that ship in produce that has been packaged and produced and the natural ripening cycle disrupted by chemicals and such. Many people are now looking at what is in their food and researching how that affects their health.

If you don't want vegies there are other foods available. I'm not vegan but that chocolate cake could change my mind!

Is your mouth watering yet?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been in a lifelong battle with my weight. And I know that the problem stems from me and my actions. Too many years eating improperly and not exercising enough. However I have been trying to learn more about the connection between good, clean food, exercise and good health. And these places offer foods to consider.

I don't know for sure how everything is produced then sold at these markets - a person has to have faith I guess that everything is done in a healthful way.

And there even places for the carnivore to satisfy their hunger. These animals are raised as naturally as possible without the chemicals and fattening additives that some meat producers use.

All the glorious food! I got there close to closing time so I missed a lot of the displays.

There is more than gastronomically delights at a farmer's market.

Isn't  the work gorgeous?

And what festival would be complete without music?

If you are in Vancouver and are interested in going to a Farmers' Market then visit this page. It has a list of all the markets with times and dates.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill,Trout Lake, Vancouver,Farmers' Market,organic,health,History,vegan

Hydroelectric Power and Lions

In the fall of 1903 the first North Vancouver District Municipal Hall was built at the corners of First Street and Lonsdale Avenue. Although the city had been incorporated twelve years earlier the city council had been meeting at different places around Vancouver except for the one obligatory meeting each year in the proper district.

The Province reported on November 12, 1903 about the new Royal Bank at Hastings and Homer Streets. The bank had the city's first safety deposit box and two teller cages. It was put up by Jonathon Rogers (as you may remember Rogers was the first person to step off of the first passenger train to arrive in Vancouver. The Rogers building at Pender and Granville is named after him) One of the credited architects is Sydney Morgan Eveleigh after whom a city street is named.

November 13 of the same year the secretary at the Vancouver General Hospital reported that, during the last month, the hospital's expenditure had been $2,492.16. The house surgeon made a report that there were 38 patients - 26 males and 12 females - at the beginning of the month.

Five days later the Vancouver High School Cadet Corps - the first military cadet corps in Vancouver - was gazetted to the militia as a unit.

The city's first streetcars started serving the public in 1890 and the system was powered by electricity generated from a little steam powerhouse on what is now Union Street. The city grew as did service to meet the need. In 1903 the little power house was no longer sufficient to supply what was needed so an alternative had to be found.

The BC Electric Railway Company started looking for a new source near the city where hydroelectric power could be generated. They found it at Beautiful Lake or, as we know it today, Trout Lake. They built a  tunnel from Coquitlam Lake to Trout Lake. The fact that Coquitlam Lake was nearly ten metres higher than Trout and that there is an annual rainfall of 3.7 metres provided a motive force to generate the power.

Johannes Buntzen, BCER's general manager, supervised the production of the system which was the first hydroelectric powerhouse on the mainland. This Dane has been called the Grandfather of Electricity here in Vancouver because he went before the Vancouver City Council and urged them to attract new industry that could make use of this new source of power.

In 1903 was when H. Hooper drove Vancouver's first taxi - a 'wheezy, two-cylinder Ford'.

Ladner's Landing changed its name to Ladner in 1903. It has never been incorporated as a town or a village but has always been considered a part of Delta. Ladner does not have any official boundaries nor has it ever had a government of its own.

(This piece of artwork was on a shopping cart in downtown Vancouver)

The Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings had stained glass depictions of Spenser, Milton and Shakespeare installed in 1903. Although they were removed at one time I can attest to the fact that those beautiful pieces of artwork are there today.

The first chairman of the Vancouver Parks Board, Alfred Graham Ferguson, died in San Francisco sometime in 1903. 

Another death in 1903 was that of Nicolai Schou, the first elected reeve of Burnaby who died in office.

The government wanted to stop immigration from China so in 1903 they raised the head tax on Chinese immigrants to $500. It worked, immigration ground to a standstill.

The three Latta brothers scaled the peaks of the Lions. They brought ropes to climb with them since they had heard that was how to do it. But once confronted with the mountain top the men were at a loss on how to use the ropes so those got thrown aside and the men climbed the peaks using small shrubs and bushes and cracks to haul themselves up. Although it would be considered poor climbing form today I am still in awe of the accomplishment.

Robert Service, future poet, arrived in Vancouver in 1903 after working a temporary job with a Duncan Dairy Farm. Here he got a job with the Canadian Bank of Commerce.

I hope you enjoyed this further look at events in 1903 and I sincerely hope that you find the beauty around you.

TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, BC Electric Railway Company, Trout Lake,Coquitlam Lake,Johannes Buntzen,history,

Beautiful Oddities

Many say there isn't much beauty in a city. Especially if you are in an industrial area. I say it depends on how you look at it.

I was walking along Clark Drive and happened to see these discarded on the side. I snapped a photo and started wondering about these boots. Where have they been and what have they have seen? Were these boots worn by a hard working person who toiled for hours? Or were they more of a fashion item for someone who wanted to project a certain look? And what will happen to them now? Will they be thrown in the garbage and deposited at the city dump? Or will some needy person happen upon them and take the boots - giving them another chance to be useful? The stories a person could come up with about a pair of well worn boots.

Today I am feeling a bit fanciful and I am looking at things around me in a different way. The other day when I went to Trout Lake I took a photo of something. I wasn't sure how I was going to use it but I took it anyway.

Amid the hardy, green rushes that dominate the foliage of the area around Trout Lake, a small blue flower blooms. It looks frail and delicate and one wonders how it can survive without being strangled by the reeds. But it does. And it is all the more beautiful because it is different and seems to be beating the odds.

I have heard country loving people state that what they don't like about the city is the lack of nature and the abundance of asphalt. Well the asphalt observation may be true - and I am not knocking asphalt, it makes some things in life a whole lot easier - the city does have its green sides.

What do you see here? Some would say a vacant lot filled with weeds but that isn't what I see. I see lots of green life adorned with little yellow flowers. I also see a feast of wild blackberries for anyone who is brave enough to risk getting pricked by the thorns.

And further along Clark Drive there are more edible delights.

This is true beauty because these are all oddities. These are things that have been discarded, forgotten, left to survive or perish. And they survive and in some cases flourish. These are all survivors that, if left alone, will continue on. Except maybe the boots. Only time will tell what will happen to them.

Until the next time I hope you see the beauty around you.

TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, Clark Drive,
Wild Blackberries,Trout Lake,sturdy,Walk,Boots,

Our Trout Lake

Most people who live in the city and want to go to the lake have to take time off work, or plan it for a weekend, load up the car, drive where ever, unload the car, spend the day then either drive home or stay overnight. Not me.

I walk a half hour along Victoria Drive and when just south east of East 12th Street, I am on the shores of Trout Lake. In the 1800s this body of water was a peat bog that supplied water to the Hastings Sawmill, owned by John Hendry. (It is or maybe was stocked with Rainbow and Cutthroat Trout hence the name.) During the time the mill was operating a flume was built to run the water from the blog to the mill. A person had to be hired full time to prevent the beavers from building dams that blocked the flow and to remove the trout that would occassionally clog the flume.

In 1926 John Hendry's daughter, Mrs. Eric Hamber, donated the land to the Park Board on the grounds that it would used as a park named after her father. That is how one of Vancouver's first lumbering operations became a place of beauty and relaxation.

Today it is a popular swimming area and nesting spot for a variety of birds.It is also a great place to take your dog.

Personally I enjoy walking around the lake and veering off along one of the short pier like structures.

It is a big area -27.4 hectares- with more than just the lake and beach.

There is a picnic area, outdoor showers, a concession booth and of course lots of people.

This is Bud the Oracle and I will be writing more on him in another post. I ran into him today and he graciously allowed me to take pictures of him and his hat while he recorded me for a youtube feature he is doing. An interesting man to be sure.

All in all it was a great day. I got to go to the lake, pet a few dogs, talk to numerous people and take some great pictures.

Here's to finding the beauty around you.

TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, Hastings Sawmill,
John Hendry,Bud the Oracle,Mrs. Eric Hamber,Walk,Trout Lake,