Dave HuggardThe Green Necklace trail in North Vancouver is, well, dull. At least that’s what I thought at first. I mostly saw it as a nearby place for that sort of abstractly quantitative I-ought-to-get-some exercise: “Three loops on my bicycle, that’s 22.5km, in 75 minutes, that’s 18km/h and 393 calories.” But with the help of a questionaire inspired by memories of an old article, I’m working on paying attention to the actual trail and the places it passes through. You only love what you know, and you only know what you pay attention to. The trail is growing on me.
The first questions come from the “Geography 101” section of that previous post: what are the lowest and highest points, and the compass extremes – northernmost, northeasternmost, easternmost, and so on? The summit at 162m above sea level, and the low point at 61m, were easy to figure out. That 101m elevation gain made me feel a little better about the exercise value of riding the loop (maybe it’s 437 calories). Some of the extreme compass points were a bit trickier, because the trail largely follows the north-south/east-west street grid. But it does wobble a little bit, and the grid isn’t perfectly oriented, so a bit of map work precisely located those eight points. [Click images on map to see the drawings]
Northernmost
Green Necklace Northernmost point
Northeasternmost
Green Necklace: Northeasternmost point
Highest
Green Necklace: Highest point
Eastern
Green Necklace: Easternmost point
Southeastern
Green Necklace: Southeasternmost point
Southern
Green Necklace: Southernmost point
Southwest + Lowest
Green Necklace: Southwesternmost + lowest point
Western
Green Necklace: Westernmost point
Northwestern
Green Necklace: Northwesternmost point
I sketched each of the points over a few months. It just happened that I did the southeastern and southern points on one of the hottest days in June. There was little shade, lots of traffic, diesel fumes from the construction trucks, contractors in pickups swearing at each other and the world at large, and general cacophony. It was like a little piece of a chaotic tropical city – I was nostalgic for travel. At the other end, I drew in the damp shady patch of forest at the northern and northeastern points on cool autumn days, with cold winds blowing off the North Pacific. It felt like I was thousands of kilometers away from the summery south.
The nearby high point has a classic deep view of rooftops, autumn trees, the city, rolling out to distant mountains, and the sea. Passing this spot previously, I had seen a woman reading on a rip-rap boulder above the trail. There is something reassuringly civilized about peaceful outdoor public places that people can sit and read. Or draw – I sat on the same perch, as passing exercisers exerted themselves over the top of this gentle hill.
I chose an early weekend morning to draw at the southwestern and lowest point, to sit in the central boulevard of a wide road without being overwhelmed by traffic or reported to the weirdness police. I then went up to the westernmost point, where the view from beneath four grand beech trees was one of those “normal” things that must seem bizarre to other cultures: people methodically walking or jogging – always counter-clockwise – around a sports track. Though possibly not quite as bizarre as someone drawing them simply because they are at the westernmost point of a trail…
Rounding out the compass points, the northwest corner features Carson Graham high school, built in the architectural style known as “Indestructible by Teenagers”. Another strange cultural practice was going on nearby, summer sports camps powered by thumping pop music and bellowing adults. At the same time, I did have a pleasant conversation with a small child who was remarkably articulate about the joys and sorrows of drawing. And who politely listened to my explanation of why I was drawing in that peculiar location.