I've been interested in green roofs for a while now (see links below) but I had no idea that there's a rooftop garden on top of the Vancouver Public Library. From the VPL's Central Branch FAQ:
Does Central Library have a rooftop garden?
Yes. Our rooftop garden was designed by Cornelia Oberlander, and is planted with ornamental grasses (blue and green fescue bunch grass) and kinnickinnick in a pattern that replicates the flow of the Fraser River. The final construction budget for the building did not include a public rooftop garden and, as such, the roof is not accessible to staff or the public at this time.
"The benefits of green roofs are multiple. They increase biomass and bird habitat in our cities, help to reduce airborne pollutants, improve the micro-climate, store and delay stormwater runoff, provide opportunities for urban agriculture and therapeutic gardening, reduce heating and cooling requirements for buildings, and aid in the reduction of the urban heat island effect."Irwin, John "Green Roofs: A Sustainable Option for Greening Our Cities" - Sitelines (April 2002): 6-7.
Why are there no photos of this garden on the library's website? Why, oh why?
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Green roofs
Campaign for rooftop gardens
I often see a remarkable woman on the streets late at night. Ellen rides a motorized wheelchair/scooter thing, and carries food for homeless people. She's been at it for years, and feeds hundreds of people each night. The other day the Vancouver Sun printed an article about Ellen. Here's the first part:
To Vancouver's street people, Ellen Shonsta is known simply as "mom".
The 61-year-old retired secretary spends nearly all day every day cooking food and delivering it to people on the city's downtown streets. Despite suffering from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that keeps her in a wheelchair most of the time, Shonsta still manages to make enough food and drink each day to feed as many as 700 people.
"On days like Thanksgiving, it can be a ton of cooking," she says from her Granville Street apartment, where she has five gallons of rice pudding and seven gallons of Chinese food simmering on a stove. "I am saddened by the need out there. It gets worse every year," she adds.
Shonsta says she typically spends seven hours a day working in her small kitchen. She receives help in the form of food and financial donations from churches in the city. Volunteer helpers also make sandwiches and stew and donate blankets and other items to Shonsta. (...)
At 7 p.m. each night, Shonsta and 10 volunteers pack up sandwiches, stew, Chinese food, hot tea, Kool-Aid, water, cookies, doughnuts, licorice and vitamins, and head out into the night to feed the hungry and the destitute.
Shonsta cruises in her motorized wheelchair along Davie, Denman, Robson and Granville Streets, bags of sandwiches dangling from the arms of the wheelchair. Her helpers pull the remaining food and drinks in a trailer attached to a mechanized scooter.
I'd link to the rest of the article, but it doesn't seem to be on the web anywhere. Well, no matter. Here are some other articles about Ellen:
Street Mom, youth join forces to help street kids - Vancouver Courier
A Good Mother - The Ubyssey
The Ubyssey article includes Ellen's phone number, just in case you feel like donating or helping out.
Those of you who've been reading Mirabilis.ca for a while know I'm interested in alternative fuels, and you might remember that I once blogged about biodiesel in Vancouver. Well, more news on that front. Mike McArthur wrote to say:
Ecofuels Canada has opened Vancouver's Biodiesel Coop:
www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=4877
www.ecofuels.caI personally am a member, and use biodiesel in my car. So if you or your blog's audience have questions, let me know.
Also, the City of Vancouver is switching to biodiesel in an effort to reduce their emissions.
www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/sustainability/coolvancouver/
Mike is at triton-env.com, by the way; the first part of his email address there is mmccarthur. Thanks, Mike!
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Automobile fuel from french fries
The power of leftovers
Biodiesel powers coffee delivery
Imagine these adverts
Tidal power in Norway
VW on biodiesel
Chicken-powered car
Bio cars
Biodiesel for Brampton buses
Cooking oil fuel in Wales
Trees could fuel cars
Denmark's eco-car
Biodiesel in Candada
Biodiesel for boats
Fill 'er up with Krispy Kreme
Anything into oil
Electricity from grapes
Biodiesel in Canada, update
Race car runs on alternative fuel
Sunflower oil to boost car future
Bananas could power Aussie homes
Elsewhere:
New Association Launches a Sustainable Energy Vision for BC - Globe.ca
BC Sustainable Energy Association
Triton Environmental Consultants: Mike McArthur
Triton Environmental Consultants: contact
Do you have worms in your kitchen? On purpose? A National Geographic article mentions a worm composting program that we've had in Vancouver for the last decade or so.
For environmentally minded urbanites, no kitchen is complete without an accessory that treats hundreds of wriggling, red guests to dinner — a worm bin. Inside the units, worms munch kitchen scraps into rich, soil-like humus and help reduce the amount of waste reaching landfills.
Worm composting has become so popular in Vancouver, Canada, that the city has established a telephone hot line.
So is your kitchen complete without one? [continue]
Related links:
Composting with red wiggler worms - City Farmer, Vancouver
City Farmer - Vancouver, Canada
Tips to reduce your garbage - City of Vancouver
Worm Composting (Vermiculture) - MasterComposter.com
Worm Composting - Region of Peel, Ontario
Related book:
Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof - Amazon.ca
Mary Appelhof's website (She's the author of Worms Eat My Garbage.)
I meant to mention something I saw in the print version of a local newspaper yesterday: an article about Vancouver architect Peter Busby and the sustainable condo he has designed. Unfortunately the article isn't on the web, but look - busby.ca has details about The Sustainable Condo Project:
The Sustainable Condo illustrates and promotes practical solutions and addresses the challenges of urban sustainability. A dynamic and interactive "green" condo, it features leading edge green building concepts that reduce environmental impacts and resource consumption.
There's also a project website at SustainableCondo.com. Both sites include photos, details on design and material, and so forth.
This is from the print edition of The Province: Students to grow vegetable gardens.
B.C. elementary students could soon be plucking recess snacks from vegetable plots instead of vending machines, thorough an innovative new nutrition program.
The Little Green Thumbs project sprouted last winter in Calgary after natural-health advocate Nicholas Jones decided to counteract the fast-food takeover of school cafeterias by turning kids into kindergarteners.
"If kids really had the choice between a carrot juice and a salad, and a hamburger and a Coke, that would be powerful, said Jones.
"Give them the experience of growing a salad from seed and let them choose. It's readlly about shifting the whole nutritional environment of children, without telling them what they should be doing."
Sounds like the sort of thing every elementary school ought to try. Interested? The Little Green Thumbs website has more information.
(Credit: thanks to Caffè Artigiano for providing newspapers — in addition to awesome coffee — for customers.)
The other night at the library there were people dangling from the roof of the building. They were suspended by ropes and climbing harnesses, and ...um... doing something they call vertical dance in mid air. Most interesting, and I bet it's fun. Think synchronized swimming without the water and noseclips, or modern dance without the floor. Here are a few photos I took of the dancers silhouetted against the sky.
What I saw was a rehearsal of the Arioso Dance Company. Vancouverites interested in such things might want to see one of Arioso's upcoming performances, which are on Friday, July 2nd (that's today) and Saturday July 3rd at 1:30 and 4:30 pm. All of these shows will be at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library.
This morning I discovered a wonderful thing while bicycling home from my swim. There's a heronry in Stanley Park! The nests are large twiggy clusters, and the baby herons (and the adults, too, I guess) make lots of grraaak noises and a fair bit of mess. Watching the birds from the ground made me wish for some cluster balloons (sensibly tethered to the ground, of course) or wings of my own. Wouldn't you just love to see into those nests?
About the Stanley Park Heronry:
Heron journal
Great Blue Heron Facts & Calendar
Stanley Park Heronry news
maps
Great blue heron stages comeback in park - CBC
About herons in general:
Hinterland Who's Who: Great Blue Heron
Blue Heron - Bird Biography
amazing photo of a heron about to land in a nest
About Stanley Park:
Stanley Park - City of Vancouver
Update:
The herons in Stanley Park - Darren Barefoot's photos, April, 2005
I never would have thought of growing olives on Pender Island, but somebody has. From Straight.com: Pender Island olive oil is now growing on the branch.
A visit to an olive grove in New Zealand last year and subsequent tasting of some excellent oils got me thinking. The cool and wet climate I experienced that day is just like the British Columbia coast. Why can't we grow olives to make olive oil? A bit of Internet surfing, a few phone calls, and before I knew it, I was on the ferry to Pender Island. A quick drive from the ferry, and I was looking at my first Canadian olive grove. The slim trees with narrow, silvery leaves looked out of place somehow, but dozens of them sloped in perfect rows from the top of a small hill down to the ocean, which surrounds the grove on three sides, bathing the property with the warm Mediterranean-like currents necessary to the survival of the tender saplings. [continue]
Related:
Plants Database: Detailed information on Olive Tree (Olea europaea)
Olives on Pender Island, BC, Canada - from the All About Olives discussion board.
Today I learned how make Ukrainian Easter eggs, which are called pysanky. The process requires beeswax, pots of dye, a little stylus thingy called a kistka, and some patience. But what fun! Here's how it's done, step by step, and here are more directions. Very, very cool.
If you'd like to make your own pysanka, you'll need some supplies - check out the links below or do a websearch for pysanky supplies in your area. (By the way: pysanka is singular, and pysanky is plural.)
And oh! If you live in Vancouver you can do what I did, and take a Baba's Beeswax pysanky workshop.
Related:
UkrainianEgg.com (Watch as initial graphic changes.)
The traditional Ukrainian Egg
Psanky Eggs - Ukrainian Egg Dyeing
Psankyshowcase.com
Pysanky supplies available through:
UkrainianEgg.com - supplies made in BC
Ukrainian Egg Art Supplies - Nova Scotia
TerenCanada.com
Baba's Beeswax Richmond, BC
Ukrainian Giftshop - Minnesota, USA
I love dramatic cloud days, don't you? Here is the view from downtown Vancouver this afternoon, looking north across the harbour.
There's a new cafe in my neighbourhood (downtown Vancouver), and yesterday they started offering free wireless Internet access to customers. Such happy news! This place is the Cicchetti Bar Caffe, and they're on Georgia Street, just west of Burrard.
If you stop in, order a bit more than you usually would (martinis? wine? pie? extra cappuccino?) and tell them the free wi-fi lured you to the cafe. They seem to be wildly busy around lunch hour on weekdays, but other times (especially evenings) have been quieter.
UPDATE: Cicchetti went out of business. They've been replaced by the Lupo Caffe, which also has free wireless.
If you're looking for other free wireless acceses points in Vancouver, try this list.
City of Vancouver steers developers to car-sharing. From the Vancouver Sun:
When the Co-operative Auto Network, Vancouver's non-profit car-sharing society, started in 1996, it only had a single Pontiac Firefly -- donated by two of its founders -- and a handful of members.
For many years, it was hard to convince people to forsake their own car for the inconvenience of a shared vehicle that could be several blocks from their homes.
But in the past few years, the popularity of car-sharing has exploded in Vancouver.
In the past four years alone, the co-op's membership has more than quadrupled -- from about 300 members in 1999 to 1,300 today. And the number of vehicles owned by the co-op has more than tripled, from 21 to 69.
And now the city of Vancouver is getting behind the idea. [continue]
Related links:
Carsharing - Mirabilis.ca, August 2002
Co-operative Auto Net - Vancouver's car-sharing co-operative
The UBC Apple Festival is on this weekend! If you live in Vancouver, this will be well worth a visit.
Every year, between 11,500 and 13,500 kilograms (25,000 and 30,000 lbs) of apples are sold to a hungry public. Over 60 varieties of heritage, new and "tried and true" varieties are available, grown both conventionally and organically. These include the heritage apple ‘Grimes Golden’ and ‘Ambrosia’, recently discovered in Cawston, British Columbia.
Also available for sale are many varieties of apple trees grafted onto dwarfing root stock, perfect for the home garden or patio. New owners of apple trees often attend one of the espalier and pruning demonstrations
One of the most popular activities at the Apple Festival is apple tasting. For $2.00, curious eventgoers can taste up to 60 varieties of new and heritage apples grown in British Columbia. Learn the history of those varieties from the Friends of the Garden's "published in-house" Apple Booklet.
The Vancouver Island-based BC Fruit Testers Association mounts a display of the nearly 200 apple varieties still grown in British Columbia. They also have a display about mason bees, used for pollination. Members of the association are on-hand to give demonstrations of grafting and cider-pressing. Try to stump them with apple varieties from your garden, as they are also available to identify apples. Nearby, Master Gardeners discuss apple-related diseases and pest management. [see full page]
I wouldn't think of missing this. I'm going to taste all 60 of those apples, and hmmmm, maybe somebody will be able to tell me what kind of apple tree we have.
More info:
Apple Festival parking and bus information
UBC Campus Map (.pdf format)
Apple Festival - last year's Mirabilis.ca posting on this topic.
Ambrosia apple
Ambrosia apple profile
At the beach last night we were more than surprised when this Viking ship sailed past. It's not the sort of thing one expects to see in Vancouver waters, you know? Turns out that a local group, The British Columbia Viking Ship Project, built this 40 foot replica. They've named the boat Munin. Go have a look at some of the sailing pictures, the launching ceremony pictures, or the picture gallery.
I've been thinking about building a boat (more on that another day) but building something like this never would have occurred to me.
The excellent Portage blog points us to the CN Images of Canada Gallery. What fun! Here are some of my favourite photos:
Grey Own in a canoe with a beaver (ca. 1931)
Ancient fire fighting equipment (1924)
Driving through an ancient cedar in Stanley Park (ca. 1937)
Streetcars on Granville Street in Vancouver (ca. 1927)
The site includes a search feature, so you can plug in the name of your (Canadian) city and see what comes up.
There ought to be an award for PR nonsense and stupidity, because we'd have a winner here for sure. Background: A few local stores have been banned from selling tobacco products for six months, because they were caught selling cigarettes to kids. One of the stores is a branch of London Drugs.
Ok, now on to the amazing part. CBC news gives us the response they got from London Drugs' spokesperson, Dick Volette.
Volette says losing the right to sell tobacco for six months means losing the opportunity to educate people on the dangers of tobacco every time they buy a pack of cigarettes.
Excuse me? Exactly how is London Drugs educating people who buy cigarettes? Oh, that would be by allowing the customers to read Health Canada's warning labels on the cigarette packages. Oh yes, that's an important educational opportunity.
And of course it's only this missed educational opportunity that London Drugs is upset about, right Dick?
In the seventeenth century, after he celebrated the Christmas Eve Vespers service, it became customary for the Pope to host a special dinner in the Palazzo Apostolico for elite Roman dignitaries and clergy. While the guests consumed a sumptuous meal, specially commissioned seasonal music was performed by singers from the Sistine Chapel and the finest instrumentalists in Rome.
Composed by Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giuseppe Torelli and others, the selections on this programme were composed for such entertainments. A common theme running through much of this gracious and lyrical chamber music is the welcoming of the new Messiah by the shepherds (identified with all the Christian faithful) and movements of a Pastoral nature (which imitate the drone of the shepherds’ bagpipes) provide a special seasonal colour.
That's the blurb Early Music Vancouver is using to advertise its December 20th concert, Music for the Pope’s Christmas Dinner. Want tickets? Details here.
For those of you who live in Vancouver, here's a Vancouver Sun article on the problems of the Downtown Eastside. Ah, just in time for Vancouver's upcoming municipal election. (November 16th, 2002.)
Now, if you've ever even dreamed of voting for that airhead Jennifer Clarke, note this part:
The NPA's mayoral candidate, Jennifer Clarke, wants an Art Outreach for Children program in Woodward's. That sounds like Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake." Seriously, what responsible parents would ever allow their child to be on that block of Hastings Street?
Well, exactly. These kinds of moronic suggestions are irritating when they come from somebody who wants to run the city.
I could rant about politics for a good long while here, so I'd best stop before I really get wound up. (Otherwise you'll never see another post on any other topic.) But look, here are some links related to the Vancouver election:
City of Vancouver's Election Page
COPE (Committee of Progressive Electors)
COPE is running Larry Campbell for mayor.
NPA (Non Partisan Association)
The NPA is Jennifer Clarke's party.
Tonight we learned a bit about the Amharic language, Coptic crosses, and Ethiopian icons. All this was at Nyala, Vancouver's Ethiopian restaurant. (The food there is yummy.) The owner, Assefa, showed us how to write a few words in Amharic, and explained a bit of the language's orthography. We chatted some more, and he showed us his Ethiopian Icons book, and his 8 coptic crosses. What fun! I've gotta go back to photograph those crosses. And, of course, for another delicious dinner.
Update on Wal-Mart's Vancouver application, June 29th, 2005:
From the Globe and Mail: Vancouver refuses to buy into Wal-Mart.
Vancouver stood up to the biggest retailer in the world, and boldly shouted out No.
With stronger opposition than anticipated, city councillors yesterday turned down an innovative proposal from Wal-Mart for its first big-box store in the city.
The retail giant made significant efforts to meet its critics' concerns, including development of an environmentally sensitive design that would have set a new standard for big-box projects around the world.
However, when the votes were counted, Mayor Larry Campbell and two councillors -- Peter Ladner and Sam Sullivan -- were Wal-Mart's only supporters on the 11-member council. [continue]
Original blog entry, July 25th, 2002:
If you live in Vancouver, this'd be a good time to read up on the way Wal-Mart behaves, and the effect a Wal-Mart store has on its neighbourhood. Do we really want a Wal-Mart store on Marine Drive? City council is now considering Wal-Mart's rezoning application, so this is the time to email city council if you're not pleased about these plans.
Related links
Helping Wal-Mart get its due - from Nurse Ratched's Notebook - August 18th, 2003. Some of the most comprehensive info about Wal-Mart on the web. Absolutely excellent.
The Wal-Mart You Don't Know - Fastcompany.com, December 2003.
At the farmers' market there were raspberries, cherries, and chantarelles. Some kids sold lemonade, some adults sold hemp cola, and some guy off in the corner played classical music on his guitar for us. We saw hundreds of neighbours, seven dogs, and a whole lot of fruit and veggies.
The goats' milk cheddar cheese looked interesting, so we bought some. Just so you know, God did not mean for cheddar to be made from goats' milk. We realised this when we tried that hideous cheese, and promptly threw it out. <sigh />
So next time we'll start at the cheese shop, where they sell real cheddar, and also a variety of good cheeses made from goat's milk, like feta, gjetost, and so forth. And then we'll go to the farmers' market.
The Downtown Transportation Plan has been approved by Vancouver City Council. The plan emphasises a "pedestrians first" policy, and the creation of a bike lane network. It's supposed to help make the neighbourhood more liveable.
Although I agree with the plan's aims, I'm not so sure about some of the implementation strategies. For example, exactly how will changing some of the one-way streets back to two-way streets help traffic flow? Seems like that would just slow things down during rush hour. I bicycle along those one-way streets, so I hope the City's getting it right when they say that the planned changes will improve the flow of traffic.
Related links:
Major revamping approved for downtown Vancouver
Cars take back seat in traffic plan
Happy Canada Day! The whole area near Vancouver's main Canada Day celebration is insanely busy, and there are an awful lot of temporary Canadian flag tatoos on faces, biceps, and tummies. It will be even more crowded downtown for the fireworks tonight.
Feel like singing? The Government of Canada has a web page that outlines the history of the Canadian national anthem, and gives words to the various versions. The anthem is available in .mp3 format at Sing For Canada.ca.
City of Vancouver council member Fred Bass wants the city to stop giving car allowances to council members. A Vancouver Courier article quotes Fred:
"It's a car-addicted society and it's time we show leadership," Bass said. "We live in a beautiful city. We get beautiful air and to excrete exhaust into it unnecessarily is wrong. If we give a councillor anything, it should be a bus pass. It's just the right thing to do."
The motion also suggests that the City "track and financially reward Councillors' when they travel by foot or by bicycle or other low-impact form of transportation."
Yay, Fred! Now how about ending free parking for City of Vancouver staff, and giving those people BC Transit Fare Cards instead?
There are lots and lots of Korean students in Vancouver. They come to study English, and most seem to live here in the West End of the city.
Now that Korea is doing so well in the World Cup, our Korean neighbours are terribly excited. Many of the cars driving along Denman are covered with the Korean flag, and flag-waving passengers lean out car windows and hoot with enthusiasm. Some enterprising kids are selling bright red commemorative t-shirts on a Robson Street corner.
At 2 am this morning, we knew Korea had won the game against Spain. We woke to the sound of thousands of voices cheering.
I'm very pleased that Vancouver's trying out electric vehicles for the municipal fleet. But, hmmm, what made them choose vehicles from Ford? According a New York Times article reprinted in the Houston Chronicle, Ford is part of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a group that has been working to against tougher fuel and emissions standards. Like we need that kind of nonsense when the whole planet is at risk. (Honda is the only major automobile manufacturer which didn't take part in that campaign.)
I wonder if anybody at the City considered (or will consider) cars like the Dauphine Electric car, which was launched at the Toronto Auto Show last year. The Dauphine is made by a Canadian company whose name (really!) is Feel Good Cars.
Corbin Motors also sells electric vehicles, and they have some fun single-seater models, like the Corbin Sparrow. Western Driver has a test drive review article about the Sparrow. Would this be an appropriate vehicle for a municipal fleet? Most of the time when I see City of Vancouver cars on the street, I notice that there are no passengers. So, maybe.
Will wonders never cease? The city of Vancouver has added two "fully electric, zero emission vehicles" to its fleet.
"The "Think City" and the "Ranger EV" are fully electric, zero emission vehicles that are being leased from the Ford Motor Company. It’s part of a two-year trial to see how electric vehicles can be integrated into the City’s existing, conventionally- powered fleet."
The press release has a bit more info.
Tonight I discovered Fresh Air Delivery, which is a shopping and delivery service with a difference. They use bicycles! This is such great news. Their pamphlet points out that they "...can do the same job as motorized delivery companies while having the least environmental impact." Fresh Air Delivery only serves the Vancouver area, but I hope to hear of similar services in other cities.
