We have been to Alaska twice before, but I thought that it might be a familiar place for Kent to restart his travels after his heart attack last July. In August of 2007 my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and took my brother and sister-in-law, Kent and me on a seven-day Alaska cruise. Then in 2022, Kent and I took an Alaska cruise and land tour which ended up being 29 days in length. While in Dawson City in the Yukon Territory we tested positive for Covid and had to quarantine for ten days before being able to fly back to the United States.
This year, our flight on Alaska Air was scheduled to depart San Diego at 10:09am arriving in Seattle at 1:13pm. We then departed Seattle at about 3:30pm bound for Vancouver, arriving about 4:30pm. The airports were packed with families and travelers of all sorts, making it difficult to even find a chair to sit in. Even with the crowds, our flights were only delayed a short amount of time. We arrived in Vancouver shortly before 5:00pm. With the airports new automated machines, the process of getting through the customs hall was quick and efficient.
On English Bay and adjacent to Stanley Park, our hotel for the next three nights was the Sylvia Hotel. The Sylvia Hotel opened its doors on May 3, 1913 as a 77-unit apartment building. It was the tallest building in Vancouver at the time and attracted affluent tenants. Through the decades the Sylvia transitioned to shorter term accommodations while still maintaining some permanent residents. During World War II some rooms were even used to lodge English Bay’s Merchant Marine crews. In 1975 the city of Vancouver designated the Sylvia a heritage building, ensuring its survival for many years to come. Today it remains one of the few publicly accessible heritage buildings in Vancouver.
Since our last visit to the Sylvia in 2022, they have been renovating the guest rooms. Our room has a new bathroom with deep soaking tub, shower, marble floor, new vanity and toilet. The room was freshly painted with new carpeting, paint and drapes. They have done a nice job to modernize the rooms.
After we settled into our room, we met up with old time friends Ken and Will in the hotel restaurant for drinks and dinner. Will had a career with Air Canada and has known Kent since the late 70’s. Ken worked in the healthcare industry. They have been together for 25 plus years and both are now retired. Even when you don’t see good friends often, you can just pick up where you left off and it seems like no time has passed.
Vancouver began more than 10,00 years ago with territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. The modern city, originally named Gastown, was built around a tavern near the Hastings Mill and dates back to 1867. The name Vancouver came about after a deal with the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886 when the railway expanded west. George Vancouver, who the city was named after, was a British naval officer who had explored and charted the North West Pacific Coast between 1791 and 1795. When Vancouver was incorporated in 1886, it had a population of 1,000. Vancouver is now a city of about 665,000 inhabitants, while the greater Vancouver metro area has a population of 2.6 million people. The city is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada with more than 50% of its residents belonging to a minority group.