Summer Highlights - Welcome to a sizzling British Columbia

Summer Highlights - Welcome to a sizzling British Columbia

by Judi Lees

Fragrant, spring days, followed by dazzling, warm, summer ones, herald a season of celebration in British Columbia. The western province, particularly in Vancouver and Vancouver Island, offers a banquet of new attractions and special events. From innovative museums to resplendent garden festivities, from intriguing wilderness excursions to new, luxury resorts, it promises to be a sizzling warm-weather season in BC.

Sit under the mammoth blue-and-yellow Grand Chapiteau at Concord Pacific Place in Vancouver to experience one of Canada’s most renowned and best-loved presentations. CIRQUE DU SOLEIL has returned to Vancouver for the second time in a year because of the overwhelming audience response. Until June 13, audiences will thrill to QUIDAM. Pronounced ‘key-dam’, it is a Latin word for an anonymous passer-by, someone living lost amid the crowd. As always, CIRQUE DU SOLEIL will fascinate with a glamorous presentation of breathtaking aerial contortions, colorful clowns, amazing, ongoing antics all set to stimulating music. It is not to be missed.

Elsewhere in Vancouver, the buzz on the streets is about two new attractions -- what’s going on under the busy routes of Gastown as well as what is happening in North Vancouver treetops.

Located underground and opening June 1 is Storyeum: A Magical Mystery Tour. On an enchanting, ‘virtual’ journey that entails live performances and storytelling visitors relive British Columbia’s past. Once transported by elevator, guests move back through time, strolling a salmon stream, into an ancient forest, stop at a Long House, board a tall ship and there are visits to a gold rush village and a rail road town. It’s a little like moving from one dramatic movie set to another. (www.storyeum.com)

Meanwhile at Capilano Suspension Bridge there is action in the evergreens. The new Treetops Adventure sees non-vertigo sufferers venture along 200 metres of walkway strung throughout the trees for an eagle’s eye view of this verdant green space. Visitors have always flocked here to cross the wood-and-cable bridge that hangs 70 metres above a rushing river and steep canyon. Now, the multi-functional park that also boasts totem poles, interpretative walks, gift store and restaurant, adds this swaying walk amid lofty evergreens as well as the new ‘Cliffhanger Walk’ that borders the canyon’s edge. (www.capbridge.com)

Vancouver visitors now have the option of an easy day or weekend excursion to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Harbour Lynx is a high-speed, comfy, passenger ferry, that takes 80 minutes for the harbour-to-harbour trip. You arrive at the prettied up waterfront in Nanaimo and everything from fine restaurants, galleries, antique shops, historic points, and museum are close-by. There are six departures daily. (www.harbourlynx.com)

On southern Vancouver Island, Victoria is always a must-visit with its heritage sites, gorgeous Inner Harbour setting – an easy stroll to many attractions -- and magnificent gardens. The Royal British Columbia Museum is always a much-talked-about attraction and this summer will be no different. Eternal Egypt : Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum runs from July 10-October 31. This much-lauded museum that relates the history of BC in a dramatic and lively way, is the only venue in the Pacific Northwest to host this priceless exhibit consisting of 144 Egyptian masterworks that span 3,000 years. (www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca)

«Previous Page · 1 2 · Next Page»