Vancouver incorporated in 1886, the year the transcontinental railway reached the coast, and burned down within weeks of doing so. What replaced it was a port city — the terminal point of Canada's westward expansion, and for more than a century the country's main gateway to Asia.
That position shaped the culture. Vancouver's Chinatown is one of the oldest in North America, and the city's food, retail and property markets are all shaped by trans-Pacific movement. Meanwhile the Museum of Anthropology at UBC and the galleries along the coast hold some of the most significant Northwest Coast Indigenous art collections in the world.
But the city's daily life is outdoor. The Stanley Park seawall, the beaches at Kitsilano and Spanish Banks, the North Shore trails and the ski runs twenty minutes from downtown are not weekend attractions — they are how residents structure ordinary days. Bring a raincoat rather than an umbrella and plan around the forecast rather than the calendar.
