I have questions – some real, some rhetorical. Help.
I haven’t lived long here in West Vancouver, and as with any arrival to any community there are some puzzling situations, so I thought I’d turn to this publication’s audience for crowdsourced answers. Based on reactions I already get to questions like these, I’ll brace for a small storm. Bring it on.
Here we go:
1. When people query West Van newcomers about their homes, almost all ask what their scenic views are like. I’m finding that a lot of people here think as much about what’s to be seen out of the windows as about what’s inside them. But human nature being what human nature is – let’s politely call it self-interested – we generally want more.
So I ask you: What is the best technique to persuade a neighbour to trim an oversized hedge so I have the ideal view almost everyone would want to hear about?
2. If the world co-operated the way we do to squeeze from four vehicular and one bus lane into one or two to get over to Vancouver on the Lions Gate Bridge, we likely wouldn’t have found any need to build the military-industrial complex. But I am stunned at times to see what happens to these peaceable people when they get to so-called Overtown and are coming back here.
Tell me: Why are they better behaved on this side of the Lions Gate zipper than they are on the lane-stealing, dog-eat-dog Vancouver side?
3. People assured me that I’d like the neighbours, and I do, but they didn’t mention the sows and boars. Frankly, I am confused about the relationship some have here with the brown and black bears.
I’d like to know: When they drop in for a visit to the backyard, why am I counselled on the NextDoor app to delight in the experience and to assume I can strike up a meaningful conversation leading to a relationship longer than the time it takes to be mauled and eaten?
4. To be fair, West Van is often a throughpoint to the Sunshine Coast, usually along the Upper Levels but sometimes on Marine. Everyone seems in a helluva hurry, and for good reason: there isn’t enough space aboard the ferry to accommodate the travellers. Now, basic economics and principles of governance would suggest that you’d respond to this thing called demand with a thing called supply. Strangely here, not so.
But if it is true (as I have heard) that the Horseshoe Bay to Langdale route has for some time been BC Ferries’ only profitable one, why are there still these incessant long lineups?
5. The lovely nine-hole Gleneagles Golf Course has so far done nothing to improve my mediocre game. I make the mistake of assuming it is simple to play, and then I simply play it badly.
But I’m curious: Given the district’s demographic (28.5 per cent of our residents are 65 and older), how is it that a public golf course that features a third hole proudly named Cardiac Hill doesn’t have carts?
6. The pandemic shuttered many stores here and there, but given the foot traffic in Ambleside and Dundarave there seems little reason for empty retail outlets.
It raises a serious question with consequences for the community’s economy: Are their owners keeping them empty on purpose, either out of indifference or in anticipation of a real estate play? And if that’s the case, it raises a second question: Might it be time to consider what Vancouver is thinking about for that circumstance in the form of an empty store tax?
7. Every place has its urban legends, and West Van is no different. We have a lot of nice, costly cars in the community, but surely their drivers can’t be content to drive 30 to 50 kilometres an hour. I don’t even think that’s second gear.
Straighten me away on this claim I’ve heard three times now: The Porsche Club, the dawn drags in summer tearing up the Sea to Sky, and the police putting away their radar for a couple of hours to let it be: True or false?
Send advice, observations and enlightenment to [email protected].
Signed, a Grateful Resident.
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of BIV as well as vice-president, editorial, Glacier Media Group, the North Shore News' parent company. He is also a West Vancouverite.
