The library in Pemberton, B.C. looks small where it sits, in the middle of a nearly empty road across from a makeshift park and a dirt pond. It consists of two sections that were haphazardly stitched together. I spent much of the summer of 2006 reading all the books on its shelves that had previously drawn my curiosity, but that I had never bothered to pick up. I had heard of Generation X before, but it wasn’t until I borrowed Polaroids of the Dead that Douglas Coupland resonated with me.
In the middle of the book, slotted between Kurt Cobain and East Berlin, was an essay about Coupland’s hometown of Vancouver – in particular, the Lions Gate Bridge. I had vaguely glimpsed the bridge on the car ride from the Vancouver airport to Pemberton, but didn’t know its name, nor exactly from where or to where it went.
A view of the Lions Gate bridge. Photo by Miss Barabanov, Flickr
Still, something about the way he described the bridge made me instantly love it and the city that held it. Coupland writes, “one last gesture of beauty … before we enter the hinterlands.” It was that line alone that made me certain I would be moving to Vancouver. Through whatever sustained hope or misguided illusion, it would be done.
After spending a summer in Pemberton and a brief return to my former home of Calgary, I moved to Vancouver on October 24, 2006.
The first month and a half turned out to be the most wretched weather the city had ever seen. I’d been warned about the rain, but that fall it was unrelenting. The onslaught of rain was so concentrated that my clothes were still wet at the end of the day from my morning walk to work.
By the middle of November the heavy rains had increased the risk of contaminated water and for twelve days everyone in the city was advised to buy or boil it before consumption.
Around the end of November, nearly forty centimeters of snow fell on the city over a four day period. I remember hearing the awkward honking of cars as they struggled, almost in vain, to get up the hill on Davie Street.
The dramatic end to all the strange weather was the Hanukkah Eve wind storm. It began with a few small gusts on the evening of December 14, and ended in the uprooting of more than 10,000 trees in Stanley Park along with broken windows, power outages and missing patio furniture. That night, I remember looking out my 11th floor downtown apartment and seeing trees so windswept they were nearly parallel with the ground.
The lights of the city flashed precariously, like a weathered neon sign. As I grabbed my duvet to go sleep in the bathtub, I remember wondering if moving to Vancouver had been the right choice. I could hear the coursing wind through the walls until I fell asleep.
Coupland’s idea of wilderness turned out to be different than mine. On the plane from Calgary, it had been easy to romanticize all the things that would be different in Vancouver. The grid changed as soon as I was on the ground.
I recall staring up at the bus stop sign on Hornby Street near the Landis Hotel like it was five minutes ago. As I gazed at the hotel cutting into the sky, I wondered where my chutzpah had gone.
Without a job, any friends, a house or a real prospect, the overwhelming emptiness of it stung. It felt like a city that I would never belong to. For a while, the image that I had bought into full-scale deserted me. In time, the uncertainty appeared less frequently.
I found a job and an apartment within a week, I made a few friends and, after however long, certain parts of the city became recognizable and innate. Instead of being threatening, the areas that were still unknown became something new to delve into, roam around in and absorb.
It’s now when I go back to my former city of Calgary that I find a sort of neo-wilderness. I know that the pieces of the past are there, stuck somewhere among the vast, outstretched sprawl, but I can’t find them anymore.
For a time, Vancouver was my version of a hinterland; a place that was isolating and strange, comprised of no civilization I knew. The confusion was no fun while it lasted, but it dissolved. Suddenly the street names dropped into familiarity, like pieces of a puzzle being meticulously placed.
Now, when I drive to West Vancouver, I know where Stanley Park begins and recognize the glassy, modern buildings of Coal Harbour. I can almost pinpoint the moment before the spires of the Lions Gate Bridge first appear from the winding causeway. I know the view well and even through careful reflection I can’t recall how it once looked.
However much my love for Vancouver is an illusion I’ll never be able to discern. This doesn’t matter now though, because this city’s been fought for. It’s in my bones.
