SPICE OF LIFE IN VANCOUVER; CULTURAL VARIETY, ABUNDANT DIVERSIONS AWAIT VISITORS TO CANADA'S WESTERN JEWEL.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

It seems unfathomable that one of the first modern-day visitors to Vancouver was bitterly disappointed.

In the early 1800s, fur trader Simon Fraser followed a river he thought was the Columbia, hoping to beat Lewis and Clark to its mouth and establish a British claim to the region. Except Fraser chose the wrong tributary, strayed north and wound up picking his way along a treacherous river that would come to bear his name.

He got to the river's mouth - now the site of Vancouver - realized his folly, and declared his mission an abject failure.

Fraser should have taken a few more moments to look around.

A peninsula location perfect for a downtown district. An adjacent thumb of land ideal for a 1,000-acre urban park. Water all around, soon to bear the names Burrard Inlet, English Bay and False Creek. The towering peaks of the Coast Mountains directly to the north, in winter framing the scene in white-tipped splendor. And an unusually temperate climate for a locale this far north - mild if wet winters, early springs (ideal for English flower gardens) and dry, glistening summers.

Subsequent visitors would find the spot much more to their liking. From all points of the compass they came and stayed.

As a result, Vancouver today is richly overlaid with ethnic texture and is one of the most vibrantly cosmopolitan cities in North America.

When heads were last counted, nearly three years ago, it was determined that 45 percent of Vancouver's half-million population identifies itself as ``visible minority'' (a Canadian census term). Chinese account for more than 28 percent of the city's population, with other significant representation found among South Asians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, indigenous peoples (called aboriginal in the census) and Japanese.

Don't presume, however, that the majority of these people are recently arrived - the norm in most North American cities. ``Many have been in the country for multiple generations,'' said Dr. Susan McDaniel, a sociology professor who specializes in demographics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. ``Vancouver has had a longstanding Chinese community; there have been a number of Chinatowns. Chinese workers were brought in to build the (Canadian Pacific) railway, and many stayed. That's a very big part of the vibrant ethnic life in Canada.''

Accordingly, a visit to this city tends to be an eclectic experience, one of strikingly varied sights and experiences.

A stop here several weeks ago revealed that winter is not a particularly good time to sample its charms - and this had nothing to do with the weather, which has been some of the wettest, windiest and grayest in Vancouver's past 20 years, according to the country's meteorological service, Environment Canada. Rather, many of the offerings that appeal to tourists are scaled way back in the winter months.

A delightful trolley service provides a guided tour of the city. It allows passengers to get off to enjoy a particular point of interest and stay as long as they wish, then reboard another trolley and resume the guided tour exactly where they left off. It operates daily from April to September - but only on weekends the rest of the year.

Harbour Cruises ply Vancouver's watery borders - but not in winter, not even on weekends.

In Stanley Park, there is a miniature railroad and a petting zoo to delight young visitors. Don't look for these features on weekdays between Labor Day and Easter, though. And if the weather is foul on winter weekends, they'll shut down then, too.

``Basically, our tourist season is about three months long,'' Al Regan, supervisor of the two Stanley Park attractions, said with a laugh. ``And the rest of the time it's quite wet.''

Residents of this city trudge about in long coats, resigned to the conditions. They throw hoods over their heads as a shield against the drizzle and unfurl umbrellas only when the heavy stuff comes down.

There's no reason tourists can't show similar pluck. And the rewards, even while exploring without the aid of organized tours, can be considerable.

Culture shock

The young man was making his way down a dark hallway, carrying over his shoulder something that looked distinctly like a dead body. And it was. A butchered hog. A big one at that.

The location was a meat market along East Pender Street in Chinatown. This is a scene the folks at the Farmer John packing plant would never want you to see, but you're not in the United States anymore. Or even Canada. This is China.

Butchers stood at wooden counter tops wielding heavy cleavers as Chinese women clustered around, insistently pointing out the exact cuts of pork they desired, arguing over the quality of this particular flank of meat, specifying thickness before the cleaver fell. At one end of the counter was an entire pile of hooves.

Hanging along one wall were the boned carcasses of some kind of fowl, likely duck, pounded out so thoroughly that as they hung there, they looked like leather throw rugs.

Every sign in the place was in Chinese - prices, poundage, cuts of meat. Not a word of English was being spoken.

Out on the street, other establishments along an open-air marketplace offered up similar mysteries. Little silvery fish. Dried vegetables and musky roots.

The walking tours spelled out in guide books usually concentrate on the historic buildings of Chinatown, but a stroll through this district is much more memorable just for the sensory impressions.

Vancouver's trolley services Chinatown. Another option is to purchase a Vancouver daily transit pass (about $4.20 U.S. per adult), available all over town at locations displaying ``FareDealer'' symbols. It is good on all public transit, including the SkyTrain, a magnetic-rail service that slashes diagonally across the city. The stop for Chinatown is Stadium.

The pass is also good for a boat ride. Of sorts.

Going to market

Anyone who hails from Los Angeles, where the automobile reigns supreme, can't resist a mode of mass transit that crosses a body of water.

Unfortunately, however, Vancouver's SeaBus is true to its name. It shuttles back and forth across the Burrard Inlet between downtown and north Vancouver, but does so about as glamorously as a Greyhound bus shuttles between Brawley and El Centro. There are long rows of hard plastic seats in which people assume standard bus demeanor - staring vacantly forward.

Forget about breathing in some fresh, salty air. This vessel has no decks, and it's not permissible to climb up on the roof.

The only reward to be found at Lonsdale Quay, the destination of this short (11 minutes) trip, is the view back across the inlet at the Vancouver skyline. Tourist officials will trumpet the dockside market, but it felt a bit too much like a strip mall with an ocean view.

An infinitely better market option lies across town at Granville Island.

It is no longer an island and never really was much of one. It began as a sandbar, then was heaped with sludge and ultimately became an industrial site as False Creek was dredged early in the 20th century.

An urban-renewal project in the late '70s transformed it into a finger of land that now houses art studios, boutiques, trendy watering holes and one impressive public market.

In early February, the array and quality of produce on display was mind-boggling. Granville Island Florist, meanwhile, featured 20 different varieties of tulips in a dazzling display. There were also bonanzas of fresh seafood, bakery items and ethnic delis.

The place, even on a weekday, was teeming with people, many of them corporate refugees seeking coffee or lunch.

And yet, ``I would say that within the last three years, business has dropped at Granville Island,'' said Gordon Lowes, manager of Duso's Italian deli.

There are multiple reasons for this. AuTto access from the foot of the Granville Bridge can get congested, and parking is at a premium. Also, other entrepreneurs, who have watched Granville Island tap a demand for specialty market items, have opened shops nearby that are more convenient.

``It can get really busy here on the weekends,'' said Lowes, ``and the parking regulations are enforced just a little bit too heavily, in my opinion. It's like they're out there with their stopwatches, with the tow trucks waiting in the distance.''

Visitors not wanting to brave this tangle, even in a taxi, might be advised to approach Granville Island from the other side - across the water. Tiny boats, called Aquabuses, ferry passengers across False Creek from the foot of Howe Street (about $1.25 U.S. per adult each way; the transit pass isn't applicable here).

Studies in civilization

The Great Hall features a glass front and towering ceilings. It has to in order to house - and highlight - the most cherished artifacts of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia: totem poles.

They soar toward the rafters, the sculpted wood expressions glowering down on intruders below. The red-cedar carvings depict the characters from family stories of British Columbia's First Nations people (as the region's indigenous residents prefer to be called).

The exhibit halls at this museum on the western edge of Vancouver also feature wood boxes, feast dishes, wood sculptures, baskets. Although some of the items are contemporary, constructed 30 or 40 years ago, hundreds of carvings are from mid-19th century Haida villages. Other archeological specimens in the museum's collection date back thousands of years.

At the reception desk, where adult admission is about $4.30 U.S., you'll be given a map of the exhibition halls, but make sure you pick up a free brochure titled ``MOA, A Guide to the Galleries.'' In a museum where placards don't yield much helpful information, this is indispensable for understanding the specific items you're marveling at (and no one at the reception desk was urging visitors to take a copy).

Even the MOA guide, however, won't be of much help in the museum's warehouselike ``visible storage'' area. Artifacts of native people from all over the world are on display, and it's worth wandering through for a look, but this area was clearly geared for scholarly research. Items are not described, they're simply assigned catalog numbers, and you're left to search through thick data books for specific information.

After the anthropology museum, Vancouver will jolt you back to modern day. Simply return to downtown and take a walk down Robson Street.

This is the near-exclusive domain of young adults oblivious to debt. It offers clothing boutiques, restaurants, music stores, coffeehouses, nightclubs - all in a blaze of light, chrome and glass.

At Joe Fortes Seafood House, a red-brick atrium establishment named after a turn-of-the-century lifeguard, the cell phones were ringing so frequently along the bar one afternoon that patrons were repeatedly digging into pockets to see if they were the ones being summoned.

It was enough to make a guy fumble a Malpeque oyster right out of the half shell.

Into the night

Vancouver's fine-dining options understandably revolve around its bountiful seafood, and it's probably heresy to visit here without eating salmon somewhere, sometime, in some form.

British Columbia myth holds that the salmon once crammed so thickly into the Strait of San Juan de Fuca (between the mainland and Vancouver Island) that you could practically walk across without getting your feet wet.

Perhaps one of the best places to eat this fish is west Vancouver's Salmon House on the Hill, which also affords a spectacular view of downtown Vancouver across the Burrard Inlet. (Dinner for two, with one of the lower-priced bottles of local wine, about $75 U.S.)

On a recent evening, one excellent dinner special featured three different types of salmon - sockeye, steelhead, Atlantic - prepared on the restaurant's famed alderwood broiler.

On another night, Le Crocodile, a French-themed restaurant downtown, proved worthy of the high marks it has gotten in guide books. It offers the requisite exotica - venison, snails in pastry shells, terrine of goose liver - without forsaking such classics as lobster thermidor. (Dinner for two, with wine, $80-$100 U.S.)

After the latter dinner, a sampling of entertainment was desired, but optimism was guarded. It was a Monday in winter. Wet. Cold. A school night. The recovery from the weekend not yet complete.

Wrong time to expect much from a blues club?

Not in Vancouver. The Yale Hotel had a strong turnout as a somewhat long-in-the-tooth blues band hit the stage at about 10 p.m. This was the genuine article: Flannel shirts. Only one microphone. The drummer warmed up for the first set by throwing back two pints of amber ale - on stage.

Canada hasn't yet adopted the nonsense of smokeless bars, and it hasn't imposed any embargoes on any Communist regimes in the Caribbean, so it affords a pleasure that conforms nicely with its multicultural personality.

On a single evening in Vancouver, a visitor can enjoy a French dinner, listen to American Deep South blues while sipping Canadian beer and smoking a Cuban cigar, then ride with a Punjabi cabbie back to the deferential British comfort of a room at the Hotel Vancouver.

Oh, Canada.

CAPTION(S):

7 Photos, Map

Photo: (1--6--Color) The view of the Vancouver skyline, below, is well worth the SeaBus ride across Burrard Inlet to Lonsdale Quay. Other images from this vibrant Canadian city, clockwise from upper left: First Nations feast dishes are on display at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology; exotic delicacies can be had at sidewalk stands in Chinatown; bakery goods are among many foods to be found at Granville Island's public market; seafood abounds at restaurants and waterfront distribution sites; blues bands stir things up at the Yale Hotel.

(7) Vancouver is bordered on three sides by water, and one of the best ways to get from point to point is by boat. Here, a ferry crosses False Creek near the Granville Street Bridge.

Eric Noland

Map: CANADA