Vancouver: the wonder of Canada.

        Vancouver is one of the biggest cities of Canada, the second longest country in the world after Russia. It is formed by thousands of snowed islands such as and the famous Groenlandia but his main attractions are the beautiful sceneries that fill all his territory, like the Niagara Waterfalls, the Northern Lights, the Rocky Mountains... In spite of having all these fantastic sights, its best wonder is the city of Vancouver.

                Vancouver, or the Northern Hollywood, like some people call it due to his huge Film industry, is a coastal town placed in the western part of Canada. Historically, it was an aboriginal settlement, but, until the landing of Jose Maria Narvaez, the place was not known by the occidentals. After one year, in 1791, George Vancouver, a famous sailor that was working for the Spanish Crown, arrived too into the place and put his name to the island. However, the first European settlement was built in 1867, when Jack Deighton created “Gassy”. It is well known that he said to the inhabitants of the place: “Build a big bar and I will give you lots of whisky”. The biggest step of the city occurred between 1886 and 1914, period in which the transcontinental train arrived at the city and the Panama´s channel was inaugurated, success that make Vancouver´s port the greatest port of Canada.

                Nowadays Vancouver is the third most comfortable city in the world, full of green-clean-parks that are a good lung for it. These parks, like Queen Elizabeth Park, Hastings Park or Stanley Park also are the house of lots of plants and animals from different places of the world. Besides, it has big and beautiful beaches of the Pacific Ocean such as the English Bay, Spanish Banks, Wreck Beach... In spite of the fact that Vancouver is one of the northern cities of America, his climate is quite good. It has an average temperature of more than 10 ˚C and an excellent precipitation level.

                Furthermore, this city has a good sports tradition, mainly based on ice hockey. In 2010, Vancouver was the place were Winter Olympic Games took place. Also, since 1991, the city has got a basketball team, the Vancouver Grizzlies. The best sports places are the Rogers Arena and the BC Place Stadium.

                And, of course, Vancouver has fantastic places to enjoy. The variety of cultural sites, like the Anthropology Museum, the Science World, the Play land,       the Floral Observatory, the Contemporary Art Gallery, the astonishing Capilano´s suspension Bridge… make this city unique. Moreover, the population is very different, because Chinese, Japanese, French, English, Spanish, Germans… live together in Vancouver, giving place to a big cultural mix. In addition, it´s compulsory to watch for the fantastic parades that go along the streets of Vancouver. Some of the main ones are the Chinese New Year feast, Dragoon Parade, International Comedy Feast…

              As a conclusion, Vancouver is the result of mixing different cultures and different traditions. It is a place full of culture and its 600.000 inhabitants will welcome you and teach how to have fun over there. You can´t lose the chance to visit it, because Vancouver is the wonder of Canada!

                Mario de la Fuente.