Did you know the official flower of Burnaby is the rhododendron?
I certainly didn't up until five minutes ago, but when I googled "North Shore Official Flower," that little tidbit popped up to take its place in my brain and push some other piece of information out my ear. Probably something important too, with my luck, like when my wedding anniversary is. Is it May? June? Uh-oh.
Anyway, the perfectly good reason I was looking up official city plants was so I could lead into this piece with a nice clean introduction. "Our official city flower is the Venomous Australian Triffid," and so forth. However, I have no idea what North and West Vancouver have as their official petal-based mascot.
If you do know, please feel free to not email me the answer — I can't afford to lose any more brain space.
However, I did think we might have a chat about the official four-wheeled symbol of the North Shore. There are plenty to choose from: is it the Tesla Model S, now so plentiful in West Vancouver that there is one for every ten bylaws? Is it perhaps the Mitsubishi Delica, an invasive species direct from Japan that flourishes on our coast thanks to a healthy supply of biodiesel and a preponderance of folks wearing cargo pants?
Is it, mayhap, the simple Honda Civic, Canada's national small car and the commuter vehicle that most helps us get from our tree-lined suburbs to our jobs in Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, or even rhododendron-obsessed Burnaby?
Well, I have a suggestion. The official vehicle of the North Shore — and we should have it emblazoned on our city coat of arms — is the Toyota 4x4. Imagine, a 4Runner and Tacoma flanking an escutcheon emblazoned proudly with noble snowy peaks, an off-leash collie, a mountain bike, and a leaf that might be maple but looks suspiciously like cannabis. Omnia Vincit Toyota.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking, and it's that a strongly worded letter to the editor about that unleashed dog is probably in order. But desist for the moment, and let's have a look at this pair of mudspattered 'Yotas.
Not everybody on the North Shore drives a Toyota four b' four — in fact, most of us have regular cars, sedans or hatchbacks or coupes. Plenty of people drive vans or full-size pickup trucks for work, and the farther west you go, the more likely you are to be nearly run over in a crosswalk by a elfin person driving a Range Rover the size of Balmoral Castle. We're not talking about the vehicle that's best for everyone that lives here, we're talking about the one that best represents our way of life.
So what is that way of life exactly? Well, to me, it is the marriage of the indoors and the outdoors. There are many reasons to come live on the North Shore: a desire to be among the trees, a predilection for paying enormous property taxes, the simple joy to be found in eating your body weight in Persian pastries, a complete allergy to any kind of sunlight.
However, greatest of these is the idea of escape. Whether you live in a highrise in Lower Lonsdale, or tucked away in some glittering fortress on the upper slopes beyond the British Properties, you can be both in the city and not in it. We're close to downtown, but the wilderness is just minutes away: rock climbing and windsurfing in Squamish, skiing in Whistler and on the coastal peaks, downhill mountain biking on Seymour and Cypress, hikes through Lynn Canyon. Basically, if you like to play outdoors, this is the place to be. You can work in a concrete jungle from Monday to Friday and curse out a black bear for eating your garbage on Saturday.
The Tacoma and the 4Runner are perfect for this sort of blissful, Gortex-based existence. If such a thing were possible, MEC would sell versions of them. Not that you can't use a Taco or a 4Runner for working duties, but every time you see one decaled out in company livery, that company is a bike store, or a snowboard outfitter, or an adventure tour company, or something to do with either craft beer or fair-trade coffee.
They have a dual-purpose nature, small enough to be somewhat efficient, but big enough to be able to haul a quintet of downhill bikes up to the top of Seymour as an ersatz gondola. They're good enough off-road to get out into the backcountry, but not so rugged that they'll splinter your spine or deafen you on the run-up the Sea-to-Sky. They're a bit on the thirsty side when it comes to fuel, but thanks to a solid reputation for reliability, have resale values that beggar belief.
Best of all, for the most part, they always seem to be getting used. Sure, you'll see the odd shiny one, but most North Shore Toyota 4x4s are usually scratched and dented, like a pair of old skis used for late-season rockshredding. It doesn't matter whether it's a 20-year-old liftie behind the wheel or an accountant cracking the half-century mark, the owners like to get outdoors and get dinged up, and the trucks follow suit.
An admirable pursuit, surely, and something that lets you turn your nose up a little at the hugely lifted, smokestack-equipped bro-dozers you see from time to time, the ones with the flawless paint that's never seen a day's hard use. Our official flower and bird? Well, that's up to the botanists and ornithologists. The official transportation? A pair of muddy hiking boots, and a Tacoma with a huge dent in the rear fender.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and automotive enthusiast. Email: [email protected]
