Douglas Coupland

Our weekly round up of local news, events, and cultural happenings we’re tracking. Off we go…

One more whale skeleton and we’ve got a trend. The soon-to-open Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC has devoted their atrium to a blue-whale skeleton. On Saturday, Ottawa’s Museum of Nature will unveil an exhibit of a juvenile blue-whale skeleton, on view for the first time since it was donated in 1975. The museum has undergone an extensive six-year, $250-million overhaul that was part renovation (a view of the show-stealing staircases inside their ‘lantern’ addition is pictured left), part restoration, and aimed at showcasing Canada’s rich natural heritage. “Probably the only thing Canadians agree on is their pride in the physical beauty and remarkable nature of the natural environment of the country,” says Joanne DiCosimo, the museum’s president and CEO. “And our public wants to learn more about their impact on the natural environment as well as, as much as we can tell them about the changes through time in the natural landscape.” Image slideshow, video tour, and article found on Globe and Mail.

The chickens are coming! Almost! After much debate, column inches, airtime, etc., Vancouver is one step closer to backyard chicken coops. Earlier this week, City Council approved a plan recommending amendments to zoning and animal control by-laws, the creation of an online registry for hen keepers, safety and health regulations, and the creation of a city-run shelter for abandoned chickens.” (!) Next step: a public hearing to legalize the zoning and by-law amendments. Slowly but surely. (Vancouver Sun)

A tale of three cities. Vancouver is densely built but expensive. Calgary sprawls over rolling prairie land but is starting to think skyward (see the new urbanist-style neighbourhood of Mackenzie Towne). Toronto is somewhere in between. For a tidy summary of how three Canadian cities developed and where their respective planning efforts are taking them now, click the link. (Globe and Mail)

Last week, a pixelated whale. This week, giant sparrows! More public art has gone up on along the city’s waterfront, this time on the Olympic Plaza in Southeast False Creek. Local artist Myfanwy MacLeod’s pair of 18-feet-tall sparrows reference the neighbourhood’s past and present. According to the artist statement, “Locating this artwork in an urban plaza not only highlights what has become the ‘natural’ environment of the sparrow, it also reinforces the ’small’ problem of introducing a foreign species and the subsequent havoc wreaked upon our ecosystem.” They’re stunningly beautiful, too. The complete artist statement and images of the fabrication are found on the City of Vancouver’s website here. Happy long weekend.

Image credit: Pawel Dwulit for the Globe and Mail

Is this an obvious choice? Absolutely. Can’t be helped. City of Glass continues to capture the zeitgeist of this place (well, minus the bit on “monster houses”; that battle has been fought and lost). With compelling photos, graphics, and illustrations, author Douglas Coupland has efficiently catalogued what makes Vancouver, Vancouver. Fleece as uniform. Sushi as fast food. Grouse Grind as singles bar. And how the city can stand in for just about anywhere on film. These things are now cliches, liberally quoted. This is the original source material.

My favourite lines are these: “My own theory about Vancouver is that we’re at our best when we’re experimenting with new ideas, and at our worst when we ape the conventions of elsewhere. Vancouver is, literally, one of the world’s youngest cities. Some day we’ll be old and creaky, but not now—right now is for being young.”

City of Glass is published by Douglas & McIntyre. A revised edition is out later this month. Click here for details.