Sunday, August 1, 2010 - North Shore News - A15

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A special

section of the Family fun in the capitalpage 16

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A16 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 1, 2010

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Deana Lancasterdlancaster@nsnews.com

FAT tears roll down the cheeks of my four-year-old as we stand in the Natural History Gallery of the Royal B.C. Museum.

I don’t know why I am surprised. Although my own memories of visiting the museum as a child are hazy (I have shadowy recollections of an old-time kitchen infused with an apple pie aroma, and an even murkier perception of a native longhouse), the one crystal-clear image is of the woolly mammoth that guards the entrance to this gallery. I suspect it’s the same for most people; the huge, shaggy beast leaves an indelible impression on young minds.

“I don’t want to go there,” Adam tells me as we listen to an audio loop of a frosty wind, the heckling chatter of a willow ptarmigan and the gutteral rumblings and trumpeting of the mammoth. “I don’t want you to go there.”

He hangs from my hand, alternately hiding behind my leg or pulling me back toward the hallway.

“It’s not real,” I assure him. “The sounds aren’t real either. It’s a recording.”

After lengthy negotiations I convince Adam to let me carry him past the replica, his head buried in my shoulder but turned just enough to let him keep one suspicious eye on the beast.

The mammoth stands through it all — unblinking eyes peering from

a heavy coat of hair, massive tusks an arched fender ahead of him — a fi xed testament to the Pleistocene Epoch.

* * *

In recent history I have been back to the museum a few times: for

temporary exhibitions on Leonardo Da Vinci and Eternal Egypt, and my favourite, Free Spirit: Stories of You, Me and BC, about the human history of our province.

But I haven’t spent a lot of time revisiting the permanent exhibits: that Natural History Gallery, the

First Nations Gallery (home to the longhouse of my memories) and the Modern History Gallery, where the streets of turn-of-the-20th-century Victoria live on.

The exhibits do a beautiful job of telling B.C.’s story in vivid detail, but it took coming back with my children

to be reminded of their impact — of the movie-set sights, sounds and smells. My husband and I marveled at our memories and at the boys’ enthusiasm as we examined artifactsfrom recent decades, explored George

Revisiting our B.C. story with new eyes

NEWS photos Deana Lancaster

See Too page 17

photo courtesy of Royal BC Museum

THE Royal B.C. Museum’s woolly mammoth is front and centre in the Natural History Gallery. There is no shortage of family fun in our capital city: visit the Beacon Hill Drive-In for soft-serve (top right), climb some trees, visit a replica of Capt. Vancouver’s ship.

Sunday, August 1, 2010 - North Shore News - A17

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Vancouver’s HMS Discovery, and laughed through the silent Charlie Chaplin movie, The Gold Rush.

In fact, traveling as a family to Victoria changed the way I look at our capital city. It’s a different town with kids aged four and seven along: charming, quirky, and utterly irresistible to the younger set.

Our suite at Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub and Guesthouses (www.spinnakers.com), not an obvious choice for travel with kids, turned out to be ideal. An easy wander down the path, the brewpub has a restaurant license on the main fl oor, which means children are welcome, and we grownups could sample the ales made onsite without worrying about fi nding our way back to a different location. We had our own kitchen (though not much call to use it since a breakfast of fresh-baked treats and juice is delivered each morning with the paper) and a bathroom equipped with a jetted soaker tub that the boys got a kick out of. And after they went to bed each night we could share

a bottle of wine on our private deck and take in the ocean view through the trees.

During the day we explored the city.

The Moss Street Market is a revelation (www.mossstreetmarket.com). The Saturday market is the longest running farmers’ market in a city renowned for its support of local producers. We wandered the booths, taking in live music, sampling coffee, mini doughnuts and homemade popsicles, picking up some bread and cheese and admiring locally made clothing, pottery, jewelry and crafts.

Then it was on to Beacon Hill Park (www.beaconhillpark.ca), where we laughed at the alpacas and noisy goats at the Children’s Farm, and the sturdy lower branches of the giant sequoia across the drive was a magnet for a tree climbing seven-year-old.

On hot days, the waterpark, complete with an enormous watering can fountain, is the perfect spot to cool off. We didn’t have our bathing suits, so we headed across Douglas Street to the historic Beacon Hill Drive-In, built in 1958 and still serving soft-serve ice

cream and dipped cones.Even more delicious was our

stop at Pizzeria Prima Strada (www.pizzeriaprimastrada.com) in Cook Street Village. Among the best pizza I’ve ever tasted, the eatery makes traditional Neapolitan pizza with Caputo 00 fl our, Italian plum tomatoes and, of course, local ingredients.

It was a lot to fi t in. In three days, we didn’t make much of a dent in our list of must-dos, and never crossed the threshold of the wax museum, Miniature World or the Bug Zoo, and never left Victoria proper to visit The Butchart Gardens. We’ll have to do those next time.

The reason for our time shortage looms large on Belleville Street, an incredible aggregation of our province’s treasures: the museum. That, at least, we covered thoroughly, spending the better part of a day there.

The current feature exhibit is Behind the Scenes, a look at many of the hidden gems that have been hidden away in the museum’s collections for decades.

RBCM plans to run the behind-the-scenes exhibits over

parts of the next two years. Part 1 includes artifacts from its natural history collection: everything from fossils and plants to fi sh, birds, mammals and more. The exhibit even includes a diversity lounge, which lets visitors explore collections in detail. What did my kids like best in this exhibit? A display of faux poop that offers a comparison of waste matter from different animals. Sigh. There are moments when I wonder what it would have been like to have girls.

And then of course, there was the mammoth.

Hours after we sidled past it the fi rst time, Adam asked to go back. We stood out in the hall watching closely for movement, and observing other museum visitors smiling in front of it for photos before inching our way into the gallery.

I asked Adam if he wanted me to take his picture. His answer, when it came, was a lightning-fast bolt and stop in front of the display, a quick, uncertain grin for the camera, and an even quicker hightail straight out of the gallery.

The photo is blurry, of course. Oh well.

We’ll be back.

Too much to do in family-friendly VictoriaFrom page 16

NEWS photos Deana Lancaster

KIDS cool off at the Beacon Hill waterpark, while the Saturday Moss Street Market yields a bonanza of fresh and organic produce grown by local producers.

A18 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 1, 2010

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Island Brewing is teaming up with the Pacifi c Parklands Foundation to raise funds to help protect Metro Vancouver’s greenspace and regional parks.

The brewing company is committing 25 cents from every six-pack of Robson Street Hefeweizen and Brockton IPA sold in the month of August to

the Foundation.The Pacifi c Parklands

Foundation raises funds to improve and expand the Metro Vancouver regional park system. While ongoing park maintenance and operations are publicly funded, the foundation partners with other volunteer groups, sponsors and businesses leaders who share its dedication to the

enhancement, preservation and restoration of these priceless natural treasures.

In a press release, Doug Devlin, marketing manager of Granville Island Brewing pointed out that our natural settings are an important part of what we love about life on the West Coast. He said because of the immense pride the company takes in being a part of this community it’s pleased to support the Pacifi c Parklands Foundation.

Consumers can also visit GIB.ca and enter for a chance to upgrade their own greenspace with a $2,500 Patio Makeover Contest.

This year, the Foundation is celebrating 10 years of protecting greenspace for future generations, enriching the communities that we live in, and encouraging philanthropy.

Denise Coutts, executive director of the Pacifi c Parklands Foundation said in the release that parks play

a vital role in the livability of our urban areas. She said it’s the foundation’s mission to protect and improve them to enhance the communities we live in.

Metro Vancouver’s 22 regional parks play an important component of the park system, and include people-oriented playgrounds, beaches and campgrounds and ecologically sensitive areas that must be carefully preserved for future generations. On the North Shore these include Capilano River Park, Lynn Headwaters Park and the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve.

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Players at each location compete for points and bragging rights in the search for the next poker pro. At the end of the season, point leaders from each location go on to take part in an invitational tournament for sponsored poker prizes.

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