The super-short pieces (none longer than 15 minutes) run in continuous, rapid rotation around a central lounge area. The audience wanders around the warehouse and chooses which performances they wish to see. It is virtually impossible to see all 12 bits in a single evening, but guests have a lot of fun trying.

HIVE: One of the strangest, most invigorating, chaotic experiments in the history of Vancouver’s live theatre scene. Photocourtesy The Electric Company Theatre

Two years ago, at HIVE 2, I saw four actors in a shadowy room perform a post-apocalyptic skit that cleverly morphed from frightening to hilarious. (Cozy Catastrophe by Rumble Productions & Theatre Melee.) I then stumbled into The Box Show by Felix Culpa, a play set, literally, inside a giant cardboard box. From there, I strolled across the warehouse to watch a surreal drama unfold down a narrow corridor (The Flannigan Affair by The Electric Company). The evening continued that way with small clumps of audience members bouncing from one bizarre vision to the next.

HIVE nights always end with live music, with this year’s lineup of eight Canadian indie bands including The British Columbians, Rich Hope and The Sadies.

HIVE 3 runs March 11-14, 17-20 at 577 Great Northern Way. Tickets are $25 for adults,
 $20 for students/seniors.

Lead photo courtesy The Electric Company Theatre.

Plane buffs advised to book summer Martin Mars Bomber tours now

by Rob Howatson

The award for most creative contribution to VANOC’s Paint the Town Red campaign goes to the marketing wizards for the City of Richmond. For two days in the midst of this Frebruary’s Winter Olympics, Richmond’s Lulu Islanders invited one of the world’s largest flying boats to moor its red-and-white hulk off the shore of Steveston’s Garry Point Park. The media was then invited to tour the Martin Mars bomber, while the public got to see this behemoth demonstrate its awesome wildfire fighting abilities as it dropped 27,000 litres of Fraser River froth into the delta – just a scant 50 metres away from the cheering crowds jostling for camera angles on the rocky beach.

Thirty years from now, I may not be able to tell you who won the Norway-Slovakia game at the 2010 Games, or what colour Jill Barber’s furry winter hat was when she sang at the Richmond O-Zone, but I will never forget the throaty growl of the Mars bomber’s four 2500-horsepower, Wright Cyclone engines as the plane drew a curtain of water that momentarily blotted out the sky.

Built for the U.S. Navy in 1945, the Martin Mars was originally conceived as long-range bomber bit was quickly reassigned for general transport when the prototype wowed Navy brass with its incredible heavy-lift capabilities.

Five Martin Mars aircraft were built for the U.S. Navy in 1945. The planes were originally conceived as long-range bombers, but were quickly reassigned for general transport when the prototype wowed Navy brass with its incredible heavy-lift capabilities. In 1959, Richmond volunteer firefighter, senior pilot and Burkeville resident Dan McIvor then envisioned converting these cargo cruisers to water tankers to fight wildfires. A consortium of B.C. forest companies subsequently purchased four of the Mars planes and the fleet went on to battle some 4,000 B.C. forest blazes.

Today, only two Mars bombers remain operational: both are stationed at Coulson Aircrane’s base on Sproat Lake, near Port Alberni. The Coulson Flying Tankers visitors centre is open to the public in the summer and plane tours are available for $10, assuming that the birds aren’t away on assignment. (Though with the word out thanks to this year’s Winter Games, early reservations may well be the way to go.) Check for  hours of operation.

>>Share your favourite sighting of these B.C. aviation icons

Lead photo courtesy City of Richmond

Is Amtrak’s Vancouver to Seattle No. 2 a train worth fighting for?

by Rob Howatson

Amtrak passenger trains have been running between Vancouver and Seattle since 1995, offering a scenic roll across the border. But it is only in the past six months that the service has become truly practical for British Columbians looking for a daytrip or weekend in Space Needle Town.

The original schedule had Vancouverites boarding at 5:45 p.m. and arriving in Seattle just in time to check into a hotel for the night. The next day, the only train home left at dawn, unless travellers settled for a bus or a second night in the Emerald City. But a new, second Amtrak Cascades train means Canadians can now arrive at King Street Station before noon, enjoy a ball game at Safeco Field or cruise the malls, then choo-choo home at 6:50 p.m. Better yet, rail lovers can overnight in Seattle and enjoy brunch the next day at Pike Place Market before  even thinking of heading home.

Photo: Cascades at Titlow Beach, WA/courtesy Amtrak

Also read: Vancouver to Seattle the Amtrak Special

Fanorama! As in, Grouse Mountain’s new “View Pod”

by Rob Howatson

The North Shore Peaks have always offered amazing vistas of Vancouver, but now Grouse Mountain Resort is putting a whole new spin on the gawk-from-above experience with the opening of “view-pod” – an enclosed observation platform located atop the Lower Mainland’s first commercially viable wind turbine.

The 65-metre-tall energy tower, dubbed The Eye of the Wind, is perched on Grouse’s highest point, 1,295 metres above sea level. Access is via the Skyride aerial tramway, the Peak chairlift and the world’s first wind-turbine crow’s-nest elevator, from which up to 36 thrill-seekers can squeeze onto the sky-high platform to appreciate the stunning view as three 37-metre-long blades sweep past the window. (The turbine’s 1.5-megawatt generator is expected to provide enough electricity to meet 25 per cent of the ski resort’s energy consumption.)

Guides are on hand to explain how the structure was built in such a lofty setting as well as how the resort intends to minimize the impact on birds and bats. 604-980-9311

Photo courtesy flickr.com/grousemountainresort

You can bus to Banff cheaper or drive from Vancouver faster. But to fully experience Canada’s first national park, ride the train in a luxury dome car

by Rob Howatson

It’s a grey dawn at Vancouver’s Pacific Central Station. Groggy tourists climb aboard their cars and collapse into assigned seats, as the train lurches in the deserted railyard and begins rolling down the platform. Unlike the ticker-tape bon voyage of a cruise-liner, there is no brass band send-off. The only ceremony comes from a handful of hastily assembled Rocky Mountaineer Railtours (RMR) employees, who position themselves honour- guard style alongside the tracks and wave.

As we slip into the Grandview Cut and exit Vancouver, the clouds part, as if on cue, and the sun streams down, illuminating the Fraser Valley pastureland in all its dew-besprinkled glory. The mountains here are no more than humps on the flood plain, but they’re covered in trees and, given that it’s autumn, are an explosion of fiery hues. Still acquiring my train legs, I stagger to the front of the car where there is a small outdoor vestibule; here, passengers take turns getting slapped about by the wind and subjecting themselves to the full symphony of creaks and groans the train makes at its maximum cruise speed of 72 km/hr. It’s an exhilarating ride. But I’m still wondering how this two-day Vancouver to Banff, Rocky Mountaineer Railtour (RMR) is going to live up to its brochure promise of being “the most spectacular train trip in the world.”

CANADA'S ROCKY MOUNTAINEER Just before Skuzzy Creek, the train slows to a photo-op crawl and we gaze down into the 34-metre-wide gorge of Hell’s Gate – the only section of the Fraser River that earns a dreaded Maytag 6 rating on the whitewater charts. This is the churning broth explorer Simon Fraser described in 1808 as a place where “no human being should enter.”

Back inside the warmth and relative quiet of my 1954 heritage coach, the onboard attendant distributes snacks to the livening guests. I chat with a retired telecom worker from Hawaii about her vacation in Mongolia as our 22-car-long “consist” (industry jargon for train) abandons its carefree clickety-clack pace of the alluvial delta for a more cautious climb through the Fraser Canyon. Just before Skuzzy Creek, the train slows to a photo-op crawl and we gaze down into the 34-metre-wide gorge of Hell’s Gate – the only section of the Fraser River that earns a dreaded Maytag 6 rating on the whitewater charts. This is the churning broth explorer Simon Fraser described in 1808 as a place where “no human being should enter.” During the construction of the transcontinental railway 74 years later, workers ventured into the canyon to dangle from cliffs and stuff gunpowder into drilled holes, all the while praying they’d got the charge right.

At Lytton, we cross over the Fraser and onto a flank of the Thompson, which calls for another abrupt scenery change. Trees thin out to reveal buff-coloured bluffs and Louis L’Amour vistas. Tina, our onboard attendant – who has an impressive ability to pour drinks without missing her narration cues – dons her mike to inform us that the rock sheds (protective canopies) we’re passing through are part of the route known as Avalanche Alley – eight kilometres of slide detection fences and white-knuckle ruminating that prompt me to move to the car’s leeward side. I prefer to focus on the old telegraph poles that assume various drunken poses alongside us; the creosote stragglers once carried Morse code messages to operators in nearby shacks. Linemen jotted down transmissions on pieces of paper and posted them to a pole so that passing engineers could grab them from the windows of their moving trains.

By the time we reach Ashcroft, our train has clambered up onto B.C.’s interior plateau and the terrain has become stunningly arid. In fact, the ranching community is one of the driest places in Canada with less than 25 centimetres of annual rainfall. Sandy cliffs bleed every shade of the pastel spectrum – from rusty-looking stains of ironstone to purple and green patches of sagebrush. Other cliffs fold and undulate like walls of frozen mud. One particularly dramatic escarpment sprouts pillars from its base – an army of hoodoos rising from the scree.

Kamloops lights up red in the sunset like a Martian lunarscape. We bunk here because there are no sleeper cars on RMR trains. Instead, buses whisk us to accommodations like the Comfort Inn, leaving us just enough time to shower before we board the shuttles for RMR’s dinner cabaret. Yes, the rail tour company has branched out into the musical theatre business. And at the Colombo Lodge Italian Cultural Centre we chow down on a hearty buffet and watch a talented local cast croon and cornball their way through Tales from the Rails, a loose version of the Billy Miner story. The next morning, 21 km out of Kamloop’s station, we pass the spot where, in 1906, Miner and two fellow train robbers tried to intercept a large sum of money destined for San Francisco’s earthquake victims. (They were thwarted by a scheduling change; the train they hit yielded a paltry $15.50 and some liver pills.) Today, there isn’t much to look at on this lonely stretch of rails – no shrine to the gentleman bandit who coined the phrase “Hands Up!” – nothing but the same beguiling ranch country that the 1982 film The Grey Fox used for its account of the elderly legend, who died in a Georgia state prison 88 years ago.

As cowboy country fades behind us, we enter the Shuswap Lake district. The labyrinthine, H-shaped lake and houseboat renters’ delight has spawned every conceivable support service – including pizza delivered to one’s vessel by speedboat. This image of a Mercury-outboard ferrying Hawaiian specials out of Sicamous has me glancing up and down the aisle for our next meal cart. But there is none, because on this second day of the trip RMR has upgraded this travel writer to Gold Leaf Service, which means I’m comfortably ensconced in a bi-level dome car, sun filtering in through the car’s Plexiglas ceiling. For each repast, I merely descend a spiral staircase to the dining area’s thickly upholstered booths and await the chef’s latest creations.

The cramped but resourceful galleys successfully plate elegant courses such as Alberta striploin in a red wine demi-glace and fusilli pasta in a dried banana maple cream sauce. Gold Leaf is clearly the way to go (bearing in mind that with fares starting at $1,179, it’s twice as expensive as Red Leaf). My timing for the dome car move is also perfect; for, as we hit Revelstoke, the geography throws us a new ripple – mountain ranges. Lots of them. The Selkirks, the Purcells, the Beaverfoot range, all in quick succession. Peaks 2,700 metres high warp through the bevelled glass roof, leaning over the tracks like giants inspecting an ant trail.

I don’t hear any mid-mountain yelps so I assume modern travellers are a tamer bunch – unlike the wife of Canada’s first prime minister, Agnes Macdonald. During a trip aboard the transcontinental in 1886, she insisted on riding atop the train’s front bumper. The engineer played along, but he must have been sweating bullets. The first lady had chosen the steepest section of track to be out on the cowcatcher – the drop between Hector and Field known as the Big Hill.

Meekly, we dart into a cave, the eight-km-long Connaught Tunnel, built in 1916 to avoid the heavy snowfalls of Rogers Pass. It’s a long haul through solid rock but not as impressive as the nearby Mount Macdonald Tunnel, which covers almost 14 km (North America’s longest). Our attendant deadpans that in frontier days, female passengers thwarted men trying to steal kisses in the dark by clamping hatpins between their lips. I don’t hear any mid-mountain yelps so I assume modern travellers are a tamer bunch – unlike the wife of Canada’s first prime minister, Agnes Macdonald. During a trip aboard the transcontinental in 1886, she insisted on riding atop the train’s front bumper. The engineer played along, but he must have been sweating bullets. The first lady had chosen the steepest section of track to be out on the cowcatcher – the drop between Hector and Field known as the Big Hill. Before it was replaced by the Spiral Tunnels, this was the CPR’s weakest link for 22 years, a 4.5 per cent grade (twice today’s allowable steepness) that forced long freights to break down into smaller trains to tackle the plunge.

We soon pass through the Valley of the Ten Peaks, a towering picket fence of summits that march off into the distance. As majestic as they are, however, they pale in comparison to Mount Temple – the most massive and highest peak in the Lake Louise area.

Transfixed by the sight of the 1929 Stoney Creek Bridge arching its steel body over the cascading waters of Mount Tupper, I’m glued to the window with each braided river we pass, each jade-coloured lake. And as the train labours up the snow-dusted approach to Mount Stephen and we breach 1,625 metres, I step through the automated sliding door onto the viewing platform – like going from a fireside lounge to a walk-in freezer. My car mates, Laurie and Rachel, stand at the chrome railing and study the small ditch that trickles alongside the tracks. “We’re coming up on the Continental Divide,” explains Laurie. “Watch the flow of the water. When we hit the divide it’s going to stop babbling west and start bubbling east.” That’s the significance of this, the highest point in our journey, which separates the Pacific watershed from the Atlantic one. Although when we actually roll past the commemorative marker on the border between B.C.’s Yoho National Park and Alberta’s Banff National Park, we can’t see the ditch water because it is sealed beneath a thin scrim of ice. Nonetheless, the huddled group lets out a muffled cheer through scarves and zipped-up collars.

The train immediately picks up speed as we begin our approach into Banff. We soon pass through the Valley of the Ten Peaks, a towering picket fence of summits that march off into the distance. As majestic as they are, however, they pale in comparison to Mount Temple – the most massive and highest peak in the Lake Louise area. Like so many of the breathtaking spires we encounter, it is a helmet-shaped wonder etched with powdery horizontal lines and capped with a hanging glacier. Its grandiose hulk stands alone above the forest, defiant. In 1955, seven climbers died on its southwest ridge (Canada’s most costly mountaineering accident), and the cliffs of its north face were left unscaled until the 1960s.

We arrive in Banff at dusk, feeling humbled by the awesome display of nature and eager to de-train so we can experience the Rocky Mountain thrill on foot. Our journey has transported us from sea level to the top of the continent and lived up to all of its brochure promises, except one – we didn’t get to see a lot of wildlife.

No sooner has this occurred to me, though, than a large, beefy elk saunters across the station parking lot. Welcome to the park that rail built.

>> The A-trains: 10 Dreamy Rail Vacations to Stoke Your Boiler

Photos: Rocky Mountaineer

Wave makers: the return of the small-scale wooden boat

by Rob Howatson

The Fraser River is the historical lifeline of B.C., and wooden boats the primary mode of transport used to navigate it until the turn of the last century. How fitting then that New Westminster’s newly expanded river interpretive centre has found the perfect way to merge and explore the mythology of these two icons.

The Fraser River Discovery Centre’s Build-a-Boat program (February 6 to May 15) offers the chance to help construct a 12-foot, flat-bottomed, wooden dinghy called a Fraser River skiff, with volunteer coaches from the Vancouver Wooden Boat Society (FRDC) assisting aspiring mariners in shaping and joining the marine plywood and Douglas fir parts. The FRDC will use the vessel for community events and may even mount it atop a parade float.   604-521-8401

Getting involved: The Fraser River Discovery Centre’s new exhibit, “The Ripple Effect,” documents river-activist-turned-MP Fin Donnelly’s two epic Fraser swims, the changing health of the Fraser waterway and tips on how to help save the river from pollution and overdevelopment.

Photo courtesy Dana Montgomery

Rumbling sledge 2010: Going for paralympic gold

by Rob Howatson

Introduction

In Sweden, in the 1960s, a group of paraplegic hockey fans decided they weren’t ready to hang up their skates, so they sat on them — and the sport of sledge hockey was born.

Players in this fast, hard-hitting, low-to-the-ice game sit on metal frame sleds, which are in turn mounted atop two hockey skate blades. The athletes hold mini hockey sticks in each hand, using the metal-tipped, butt-end of the shafts to propel themselves across the ice.

Surprisingly, Canada has been late in achieving dominance in this sport. Paralympic gold did not come our way until Torino in 2006, when North Vancouver-born sledger Greg Westlake and his team blanked Norway 3-0. Now the 23-year-old right-winger and his squad will attempt to defend their title at the 2010 Games. Westlake, currently living in Mississauga, Ontario, took time out from training to explain why B.C.’ers should check out the sledge-hammering at UBC Thunderbird Arena this March.

The Interview

WW: Why were your legs amputated when you were 18 months old?

GW: It was a birth defect. My feet didn’t form properly.

WW:How did you get into sledge hockey?

GW: As a kid, I played stand-up hockey on prosthetic legs. I couldn’t skate as fast as the other kids, so I was relegated to goalie. Then, at 16, I switched to sledge hockey, which allowed me to do what I’d always wanted: to join the rush. I’m an energetic guy, an aggressive guy. Playing forward suits my personality. And not only can I do that in sledge hockey, but I can do it on a level playing field with other athletes who are lower-limb disabled. That’s a rush.

WW: What was your most frustrating moment when learning to skate with your hands?

GW: Being worse than everyone else. Since I was coming from a stand-up hockey background, I thought I’d just jump right in and be a great player. In reality, I had to learn to skate all over again.

WW: How do the rules of sledge differ from stand-up hockey?

GW: They’re similar, but in sledge the refs don’t allow “Teeing,” so you can’t use your sled to ram an opponent’s at right angles. No T-boning.

WW: Which still leaves room for devastating, clean hits?

GW: For sure. Unlike stand-up hockey, in which players hit the boards high, where the “glass” flexes, we slam into the boards low, where there’s no “glass” and no flex. It’s like hitting a cement wall.

WW: What can first-time sledge viewers expect in terms of puck-handling and shots? ?

WW:The stickwork is every bit as impressive as in the upright game. Players can dribble the puck so that it crosses beneath their sled — a great way to confuse goalies. As for shots, some of our guys blast pucks that travel 60 to 70 mph.

WW: How did people react to sledge hockey at the 2006 Torino games?

GW: The crowds were surprisingly good. Early on, organizers had to bus school kids in to fill out the stands, but as things progressed, the sport grew in popularity. I like to think our team’s gritty determination had something to do with that. And our gold-medal game ended up being broadcast live in Torino’s town square, where the thousands who couldn’t get tickets to the sold-out final jammed the plaza to watch the event. I hope it’s like that in Vancouver for these Paralympic games. The larger the attendance, the more pumped we get, the harder we play and the more exciting the sport.

Seattle foodie tours, courtesy of the Choo-Choo Yum-Yum

by Rob Howatson

In the spring 2010 issue of Westworld magazine (due out February 19 to 23), I write about how crucial it is to have two Amtrak trains operating daily between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. (See “Keep the B-Train” in the Fresh Trax section.) This two-train system is the only way to provide a schedule that is amicable for both southbound and northbound travellers who wish to spend a night in either city and have some fun. But as I point out in the article, the current two-train system is a pilot project that will be re-evaluated after the 2010 Olympics. If the second train is yanked, the schedule will likely revert to its pre-August 2009 incarnation, which had Vancouverites arriving in Seattle late at night. And if these same visitors wanted to choo-choo back to Vancouver the next day, their only option was an early morning departure, leaving no time to explore the Emerald City.

So let us hope that the B.C. government, Amtrak, the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Canada Border Services Agency can come to some agreement to keep both train sets running daily – because, most definitely, the Amtrak service is a comfortable and affordable way to access Washington State. Reclining leather seats, video monitors that show movies, a bistro car and the opportunity to stroll about the train during transit make it a far more relaxing way to journey over the border than travelling in a cramped street vehicle. True, the train is not as fast as going by car or bus, but the tracks follow a more scenic route, at times skirting the shores of Puget Sound.

VANCOUVER TO SEATTLE Amtrak's two-train schedule is the only way to provide a schedule that's amicable for both southbound and northbound travellers – at least those who want to spend a night in either city and have some fun.

And, Seattle-bound passengers arrive at the elegant King Street Station, which is nearing completion of a $27-million renovation to restore the clock-towered terminal to its 1906 railway cathedral glory.

I took advantage of Amtrak’s dual-train service this spring and found downtown Seattle full of amazing structures, old and new, and found the best way to get acquainted with them quickly was to reserve a spot on one of the Seattle Architecture Foundation’s walking tours. Typical stops include the late-’70s Rainier Tower, designed by Minoru Yamasaki who also did Manhattan’s late World Trade Centre, and the ultra modern Central Library, which The New Yorker’s architecture critic has declared “the most important new library to be built in a generation.”

Another must-do walk is a Savor Seattle Food Tour. The company offers three different graze-and-gazer options: The Pike Place Market Tour, Gourmet Seattle Tour and Chocolate Indulgence Tour. I did the Gourmet one and it was amazing to see how an invigorating urban dash, interspersed with artisan-quality noshing, can lead a group of strangers to bond in the course of a three-hour tour. It didn’t hurt that our guide was a lovable eccentric with the facial hair of a pirate. Eric also sported an industrial-grade kilt and, at one point in the itinerary, belted out a few lines from a rollicking sea shanty — and that was before we reached the Pike Brewing Company.

The Gourmet tour begins at The Mayflower Park Hotel, where cocktails are served at The Andaluca Restaurant, and then everybody conga lines out into the street, meandering through an upscale pizzeria, a romantic pasta nook, a sausage kiosk, the techno-slick ART Restaurant and a couple other eateries. The final sampling takes place at the tastebud-bursting gelateria called Gelatiamo.

Rating: All the foods and drinks sampled were delicious. The chefs of the different properties were often on hand to explain their processes and culinary philosophies in person. Eric injected titillating bits of Seattle history when he wasn’t cracking us up with his pink umbrella dance. In fact, I was disappointed and shocked at how quickly the three hours disappeared. Fortunately there are two more Savor Seattle tours to try on my next Amtrak-to-Seattle jaunt.

>>More Amtrak reading:  Keep the B-Train

>>What’s your favourite guided walking tour?  Any particularly good ones in B.C. we should know about?

Photo: courtesy Amtrak

Aviation buffs alert: the Grump is home

by Rob Howatson

Snohomish County Airport’s Paine Field continues to evolve as a kind of Disneyland for aviation buffs. Located in Everett, Washington, the airport has long housed the Boeing plant tour at the Future of Flight Aviation Centre — a Science World-like attraction filled with interactive exhibits of the latest commercial jet technology. Also onsite: the Seattle Museum of Flight Restoration Centre, where vintage warbirds are prepped for display  in Seattle, and which recently got new neighbours when Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen moved his collection of rare military aircraft down from Arlington.  And now Historic Flight at Kilo-6 is throwing open the hangar doors on its own winged jewels, including a flyable 1944 P-51 Mustang, 1954 Canadair T-33 Silverstar and 1943 B-25 Mitchell nicknamed Grumpy.

Fly-alongs for the public available within the year.

>>Meanwhile, check out this B-25 Bellingham-to-Everett cockpit footage of Grumpy’s return home

OLYMPICS UPDATE

What every volunteer Olympic ambassador needs to know

by Rob Howatson

As a lifelong Vancouverite, I love this city and accept that it is my civic duty to wear an Ask Me! button during the 2010 Games, but it is with some trepidation that I don the pin. It’s not that the buttons themselves look goofy. The City of Vancouver’s Ask Me! Happy to Help button has a pleasing, blue gradient background with an Olympic logo on it. Whistler has the Ask Me I’m a Local button which features an eco-trendy splash of green, fitting for the grassroots campaign started by Sea-to-Sky resident Janis McKenzie and ski tourist Dan Perdue.

And then there is the red button that I will be wearing. It is a harmless smiley face with the eyes replaced by the words: Ask Me. My wife brought two home from work. Her office got them from Translink which is distributing them through its Employer Pass Program, a green initiative that offers discounted transit passes to companies with 25 or more staffers pledging to use public transit.

My concern is that as I move about the city, with this red beacon on my chest, some disoriented tourist may ask me a question that I can’t field, and I will have failed as an ad hoc ambassador. So in preparation for my role as self-appointed, street concierge, here are some tough questions I’ve studied up on in advance.

Q: Where can I get a great bannockwich?
A: At the Four Host First Nations’ 2010 Aboriginal Pavilion, located at Georgia and Hamilton Streets.

Courtesy Purdy's Chocolates

Q: (from a visitor with a stutter) How do I get to the corner of Duke-Duke-Duke-Duke and Earles?
A: Get off at 29th Avenue Skytrain station, walk east to Earles Street and go five blocks south. Pause briefly at Duke and Earles to hum the 1962 Gene Chandler doo-wop hit, then keep going to Kingsway, where you will find Vancouver’s beloved Purdy’s chocolate factory. Purdy’s is the city’s oldest chocolatier, and the small retail store attached to the factory is a great place to get fresh-from-the-copper-kettle delectables such as truffles infused with luscious Mission Hill Vidal Icewine ($12.95) or Olympic souvenir boxes packed with hedgehogs and maple melties ($12.95).

Q: I wish to shake my booty? Any suggestions?

Courtesy Ellie O'Day/Boca del Lupo

A: Dance Marathon is an immersive and competitive theatre performance where you compete against other audience members in an actual dance marathon. Warning: If you are a good booty shaker, you and your partner may be out on the floor for up to four hours. Wear sensible shoes. February 9, 10, 11 and 13, 7 p.m. at the Roundhouse Community Centre (at Davie & Pacific). Tix $30

Q: Where can I see my name in lights?
A: Not sure about your name, but you can certainly see your aim in lights. Go to vectorialvancouver.net. Participate in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive light sculpture project, which runs until February 28. Twenty robotic searchlights have been positioned around English Bay. You can program a short dance for them online. Once you are happy with your proposed choreography,  submit it together with your name, location and dedication. Every night from dusk to dawn, new designs are activated from the website’s queue. The project automatically creates a personal webpage for each participant, documenting his or her contribution with views from four project webcams.

Q: How y’all gonna pay for this little sports tourney?
A: (Silently remove English Ask Me button and replace with Farsi one. Then smile, shrug and pray that this inquisitive tourist doesn’t speak Persian. (The City of Vancouver Ask Me buttons are available in 24 different languages.)

by Rob Howatson

courtesy Dan Fairchild

The sculptures and images of Vancouver’s streetscape blitz are the product of several arts initiatives that are intersecting as Vancouver heads into Olympics mode. Many of the bizarre and beautiful creations popping up around Vancouver and Richmond, for example, are part of the Vancouver Biennale, an arts exhibition that, as its name would suggest, is supposed to take place every two years – but in this case is spanning 2009 to 2011.

The Biennale features 39 installations collectively worth more than $10 million: pieces that range from the Gao brothers’ Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head, which is drawing cheers and jeers at Elmbridge and Alderbridge Way, to Jaume Plensa’s WE — a human form, woven from letters, that haunts Sunset Beach at night when the sculpture glows white. A map showing the locations of the different Biennale sites is available here.

courtesy Dan Fairchild

The City of Vancouver has also launched The Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program, which includes more than 20 new permanent and temporary public artworks commissioned for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This explains why Vancouver’s City Hall is trimmed with LED lights that produce a cascading effect for a few seconds at the top of each evening hour. (See the YouTube video here.) Thanks, German artist Gunda Förster. The program also explains why Vancouver artist Vanessa Kwan will tow a skewed kiosk around the city February 21 to March 21 and hand out postcards to passerby. The postcards have die-cut holes in them enabling recipients to frame the real vista and take their own photos of the landscape within the dreamscape. The images can then be posted to Flickr so that suddenly the viewer is the artist.

courtesy Dan Fairchild

Also be sure to check out Ken Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver at 6th Ave and Clarke Drive, Stan Douglas’s Abbott and Cordova, which is located in the atrium of the new Woodward’s complex near Abbott and Cordova and Michael Lin’s enormous hand-painted mural that covers the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Georgia Street façade.

>>Which artworks, if any, do you find uplifting?

>>Which ones should be chased out of town, as was the case with Dennis Oppenheim’s Device for Rooting Out Evil, the six-metre-tall, upside-down church that once graced the lawn at Coal Harbour’s Harbour Green Park?

Photos courtesy Dan Fairchild

The train’s appearance in White Rock coincides with the city’s 4th annual “Bite Of The Rock” restaurant festival, which runs until February 9 and features 18 participating eateries offering three-course meals for $15-35. On February 9, Royal Hudson passengers who arrive early for the noon steam run to Vancouver (we’re talking 6:30 am early) can also cheer the Olympic torch as it passes through the Boundary Bay town. The relay rally will be followed by a pancake breakfast and musical performances at the White Rock Community Centre, 15154 Russell Avenue, from 7:30 am to 10:30 am.

The Royal Hudson's appearance in White Rock coincides with the city’s 4th annual “Bite Of The Rock” restaurant festival, which runs until February 9 and features 18 participating eateries offering three-course meals for $15-35.

As for the Royal Hudson’s adopted home at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish, work is nearing completion on the museum’s 22,000-square-foot CN Roundhouse and Conference Centre. Once finished, sometime in April or May, the impressive train gallery will be the first roundhouse built in Canada in more than a century. The facility will have berths for seven vintage locomotives and railcars, and room for 1,200 conventioneers, making it the largest banquet-meeting facility on the Sea to Sky Corridor. That’s a lot of train spotters.

One can already hear B.C. folk musician Dave Baker’s Royal Hudson echoing through the rail yard:

Once again we’ll hear those sounds of yesteryear -
that haunting wail our fathers used to know,
and we’ll look into the sky to see her plume that billows high
as she crawls along the rocky shore below.

Check out Chor Leoni’s rousing version of this tune, complete with Ken Storey images of mighty #2860 in all her pre-diesel glory.

And share your Royal Hudson memories with us.

Lead photo courtesy West Coast Railway Association

Heritage Vancouver has a knack for hosting weird events in wonderful locations. Or perhaps they are wonderful events in weird locations. All I know is that I always come away from their functions feeling giddy, having learned some new secret that helps me better understand the city, having accessed some place that few people get to visit now and having met people who know about Vancouver’s past because they were actually there.

Such was the case last Wednesday with one of the non-profit’s most popular fundraisers: An Evening at the Penthouse. (The event sold out so quickly that Heritage Vancouver has scheduled a don’t miss follow-up for January 27.)

A Brief History of The Penthouse Nightclub

The Penthouse Night Club was founded in 1947 by the Filippone brothers, Joe, Ross, Mickey and Jimmy. It quickly grew to become one of the city’s hottest supper clubs, attracting headliners such as Sammy Davis Jr, Nat King Cole and The Mills Brothers. Today the business is a strip club run by Ross’s son, Danny. And the 47-year-old impresario, looking down-to-earth chic in blue jeans and untucked dress shirt, seemed genuinely happy to host a crowd that was there more for the built heritage than the built hotties.

He gave us an extensive tour of the establishment, starting right out front on the sidewalk at 1019 Seymour near Nelson. Anyone who has been downtown at night has seen this pink-neon-trimmed, three-storey building with the red flashing arrow on its marquee, beaconing partiers to enter the chrome-quilted doors under the smiling visage of two show girl cut-outs affixed to the pansy-purple façade. But Danny wanted us to note the old house engulfed in the shadows next door. 1033 Seymour was purchased by Danny’s grandfather in 1932, and one of the last remaining single-family, detached homes in the neighbourhood, though “single-family” might be a bit of a misnomer. The narrow abode stretches back 120 feet, far enough to accommodate eight bedrooms and three kitchens.

It was in this house, in 1983, that Danny’s uncle Joe was shot and killed by a 25-year-old unemployed plumber from Ontario. The gunman was after the contents of Joe’s home office safe and he made off with $1,200 before being arrested at Hastings Park Racetrack a few days later. But Danny prefers to dwell on the good memories he has of 1033 Seymour. Such as launching Halloween fireworks from the property’s deeply sequestered courtyard and watching the police circle the block in a futile attempt to locate the source. Or discovering a hole in one of the home’s walls, reaching in and pulling out a small chest containing a stack of autographed celebrity photos — a who’s who of Penthouse visitors. To see the 8×10 glossies and hear the stories they represent, we follow our guide back into the iconic club.

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We tour abandoned rooms, such as the small

lounge with a baby grand that once serviced the ivory ticklers

of jazzlegend Duke Ellington.

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Danny leads us up to the building’s second and third floors, areas normally closed to the public. We tour abandoned rooms, such as a small lounge space with a baby grand piano that once serviced the ivory ticklers of jazz legend Duke Ellington. Down a hall and through another doorway, we encounter a derelict charbroiler in a room once called the Steak Loft. Customers chose their own cuts of meat, which were cooked and served on wooden platters. “This was,” Danny says proudly, “before Hy’s carved their space in the steak market.” (The club also claims to be the first in Vancouver to offer pizza by the slice.)

In the Green Room, named for its gaudy, green wallpaper, a small button on the wall is labeled Beverage Bell. VIPs such as Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn and heavyweight champ Max Baer would have used it to summon drinks.

And there was another buzzer system at work in the club. Prior to the Penthouse landing a liquor license in the mid-50s, Uncle Joe employed spotters on the roof to watch for police raids. If they saw cops approaching the entrance, they rang to alert wait staff, who in turn instructed patrons to hide their bottles under the tables. The police conducted deliberately feeble searches, perhaps because they were on the take or perhaps because, as drinkers themselves, they didn’t want to enforce B.C.’s bizarre liquor laws too heartily. When the authorities left, the festivities resumed – as they did for us on Wednesday night, when Danny led us back down into the functioning portion of the Penthouse, the Gold Room.

Tales of Oscar Peterson and Other Penthouse Regulars

The original red-and-gold curtain still backdrops the stage, but a 2001 facelift has contributed an impressive, glowing bar to one side of the room and a surprisingly understated glittery paint to the walls.

While Heritage Vancouver supporters queue for an Indian buffet arranged on the club’s pool table and redeem their martini vouchers, I table hop in search of stories. A diverse crowd is in attendance. The history buffs range from seniors who have come to reminisce about Vancouver’s night club glory years to young hipsters eager to learn about Rat Pack-era fashion trends. At a plush booth overlooking the stage, I encounter choreographer and B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame inductee Jack Card. The soft- spoken, impeccably mannered gentleman stands to inspect a row of three photos along a wall. He then returns and announces quietly, “I worked with them all.”  The images are of singers Johnnie Ray, Harry Belafonte and Louis Armstrong. I nearly choke on my naan bread.

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B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame-inductee Jack Card inspects

a row of photos:  of singers Johnnie Ray, Harry Belafonte and Louis

Armstrong. “I worked with them all.”  he says, quietly.

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Next up on the agenda, Helga Pakasaar, curator of North Van’s Presentation House Gallery, hosts a slide show exploring imagery from Vancouver’s nightclub golden years: the 1940s to 1960s. There are photos of feather-and-sequined burlesque dancers, of tux- and gown-attired guests in the snazzy Palomar Supper Club (which once stood at Burrard and Georgia) and, somewhat inexplicably, a portrait of a young Terry David Mulligan looking like a beatnik about to embrace full-on hippiedom. It’s an informal talk, periodically augmented by additional info from Danny, who had taken up a post near the bar. “God handed out cigars the day I was born,” shouts the club owner. He was referring to the comedian George Burns who played the title role in the 1977 film Oh, God! Burns was doing stand-up at the Penthouse the day Ross Filippone’s son arrived and, to celebrate, the Oscar winner passed round his signature stogies.

I relocate to another booth and meet Joanne Randle, who has brought her 81-year-old mother, Edna, to reminisce about the Penthouse’s early days as an after-hours hotbed of jazz super-jams. (Edna was one of the original six members of the New Jazz Society) has a sharp memory and recalls witnessing Canada’s two premiere jazz pianists, Oscar Peterson and Chris Gage go head to head for harmonic supremacy in the club circa 1950. A “carving session” she calls it.

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Today, of course, late night jazz sessions are a thing of the

past, So too are the Vegas showgirl-style dancers, who were

replaced by total-nudity exotic dancing in the 1970s.

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Today, of course, late night jazz sessions are a thing of the past at The Penthouse. So too are the Vegas showgirl style dancers, who were replaced by total-nudity exotic dancing in the 1970s. Also in that decade, the Penthouse was charged with conspiracy to live off the avails of prostitution, and  the club shut down for four years as the case dragged through the courts. But in the end, the Filippone brothers were able to fend off the accusations and the Penthouse re-opened. (Read coverage of this famous court case at the Penthouse website.)

Danny introduces the special entertainment of the evening: a scantily clad woman wearing Minnie Mouse ears who struts and writhes around a brass pole to the tune of “Hey, Mickey.” She has a walnut-size crystal lodged in her navel. I wonder what the strip club etiquette is should the gem stone pop out and roll across the stage into my drink? No worries. The rock holds.

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The Penthouse earns additional revenues as a film

location – for movie and TV shoots such as CBC’s Intelligence

and the upcoming Halle Berry flick Frankie and Alice.

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In a quieter corner, at the back of the room, I ask Danny about the Penthouse’s future. Giant condo towers are sprouting up all along Seymour. The land the club occupies must be valued in the double-digit millions, and the family has received offers. But Danny says, “As long as we’re making money, we’ll continue to operate.” (The business earns additional revenue by renting the building for film and TV shoots such as CBC’s Intelligence and the upcoming Halle Berry flick Frankie and Alice.)

A few hours later, I step out onto Seymour Street into the brisk, cold air. Eight-seven-year-old freelance writer Rudy Carlson, who has come alone all the way from North Vancouver to attend the event, is making his way slowly to the bus stop. I walk with him and he tells me his own Penthouse memory.

“I brought my father-in-law here in the ’60s when it was still a bottle club. We forgot to bring our own liquor so we gave $20 to a working girl in the room and she said she would head out to find us some booze. It was a wintry night like this one so my father-in-law, being a trusting guy from the Prairies, lent her his jacket. It was only after she was gone that he realized he had also given her his wallet – it was in is coat pocket and loaded with cash. There was a long, awkward wait, and she finally came back with the whiskey, the jacket and the wallet, intact. She was the hooker with the heart of gold,”says Carlson, “from the heart of the Gold Room.”

>>Do you have any glorious or notorious memories of the Penthouse in its pre-stripper days?

>>Do you think this building should be preserved as a prime example of Vancouver’s entertainment history?

Let us know.

Do you have any glorious or notorious memories of the Penthouse in its pre-stripper days or otherwise? Do you think this building should be preserved as a prime example of Vancouver’s entertainment history?

Lead photo courtesy Heritage Vancouver Society.