6 Strange Institutions Vancouver Convinced Me a City Should Have – Blog by Mike Polischuk

Blog by Mike Polischuk

Finding Meaning in Times of Uncertainty

This family is going to enjoy the self-grown carrots they just picked up from their box in the Beaconsfield Park community garden

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Davie Village community garden, right in the heart of downtown.

 

Microbreweries On Every Corner

Vancouver has so many craft beer breweries, that many of them are named by the neighborhoods or even the streets they are on: Powell Street brewery, Main Street brewery, Coal Harbor brewery, Strathcona Beer Company, and many more. There are still streets, bridges and park benches unclaimed by a brewery, but those are disappearing fast.

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Granville Island brewery, located just under the Granville island, was the first microbrewery in Canada
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This is the Main Street brewery, in the historic Brewery Creek district in Mount Pleasant, just off Main street. Its Scottish Golden Ale is pretty good, and so is its catchy motto: “the main thing is the beer!”
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The Red Truck brewery has a distinct “this is for real men” feel to it. Its brand features an old red truck and its ale is rugged and bitter. But this is Vancouver, and so after a recent mural festival in the neighborhood, it also has colorful, silly faces on its reservoirs
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The local beer is going through a rigorous sniffing test by our QA team

 

Inclusive Public Pools

What can be less exciting than a pool? A chlorinated water reservoir where lined up bodies move in straight lines – hardly something to write about. Well, enter Kitsilano pool – the complete opposite of every boring pool out there. Located on the Kitsilano beach, its view on the North Shore Mountains and the English bay is breathtaking. Want more? It’s a saltwater and heated outdoor pool.

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Kitsilano pool is the second longest outdoors pool in Canada

So what makes it inclusive? For one, it’s wheelchair accessible. Not as in “you can enter the pool building on a wheelchair” accessible, but as in “you can wheel right into the water” accessible. It also has aquatic wheelchairs one can use freely.

img_5002Operated by city, the public pools’ entrance fees are very low. In Kitsilano pool, it’s $6 for an entire family. That’s the closest to true communism the humanity has ever come.

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The pools are so inclusive here, that even seagulls feel welcomed to join in on the fun.

Here’s another way the pools here ensure that everyone is comfortable using them: universal change rooms and “Trans people welcome” signs.

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Signs in Hillcrest pool

The children here are first-class citizens as well. The children corner in the Hillcrest public pool is a full-blown aquatic playground with free-for-use floating toys, suddenly appearing fountains and a mini “river swirl” where children can learn to keep on the water while moving with the flow.

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You see, in Vancouver a pool isn’t a consumerist perk of country club members, but an unalienable right of every person.

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