Waterfront Station

The station has been a transportation hub since 1887, when the original timber structure welcomed the first cross-Canada passenger train. The present building was built in 1914. With Vancouver Harbour as backdrop, the station’s white-columned façade is impressive in a showy way. Inside, murals on the upper walls depict Canadian landscapes.

The showstopper of the Harbour Centre complex is its 581-ft (177-m) tower, home to The Lookout! observation deck. The ride up in the glass-fronted elevator takes a thrilling 50 seconds. From the enclosed viewing deck, the 360-degree view is splendid. On a clear day, you can see Vancouver Island to the west and Washington State’s Mount Baker to the south. In the evening, many return to admire the intense sunsets over the water.

When Canada Place opened in 1986, it was greeted with controversy. Critics commented that its five “sails” were a poor imitation of Australia’s Sydney Opera House. The complex is now a key player on the waterfront, which has grown up around it.

Gassy Jack statue, Gastown

The cobblestone streets of Gastown have been through many reincarnations. The current one is perhaps the most satisfying. Since the 1970s, the area has worked hard to better itself. The plethora of tawdry souvenir shops have largely been replaced with boutiques selling the work of local designers, a concentration of excellent First Nations and Inuit art galleries, restaurants, and clubs.

A Vancouver landmark, the 17-story Sun Tower was the tallest building in the British Commonwealth, at 270 ft (82 m), when it was built in 1911. The handsome Beaux Arts building’s nine nude statues once scandalized the city, which turned out in droves in 1918 to watch Harry Gardiner, the “Human Fly,” scale its walls.

Stretching from Gore Avenue west to Carrall Street between Pender and Keefer streets, Chinatown dates back to the 1880s and the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, when as many as 20,000 Chinese came to Canada. Today it is North America’s second-largest Chinatown. Shops with their vegetable stalls spill onto the sidewalks. The Millennium Gate straddles Pender near Taylor Street and is the best place to start a walking tour of this lively area.

The city of Vancouver has its roots in this small square. Standing atop his barrel of beer, the statue of John “Gassy Jack” Deighton commemorates Gastown’s founder. The talkative publican built the city’s first saloon with the help of thirsty sawmill workers. A maple tree here was once a popular meeting place until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1886. Gaoler’s Mews was the site of the city’s first prison, as well as the home of the city’s first policeman, Constable Jonathan Miller.

Enter the old city morgue, now the police museum’s forensic laboratory, and it’s not difficult to imagine the coroner leaning over the slab, about to start an examination. Housed in the former Coroner Court, built in 1932, the museum has fine exhibits of counterfeit money, antique firearms, and street weaponry. Always popular is the knife room. Unsolved murders are depicted in displays complete with dummies and period costumes.

This Ming Dynasty-style garden, the first built outside China, opened in 1986. It re-creates the private areas typically found in a Ming scholar’s home. With its meandering paths, corridors and courtyards, and asymmetrically placed rocks, the garden invites contemplation on the beauty and rhythm of nature. Plants include local and traditional Chinese varieties, such as flowering gingko trees and twisted pines.

Said to be the world’s first steam-operated clock, this landmark is one of the most photographed in the city. But it’s not an antique. Local horologist Raymond Saunders based the 16-ft- (5-m-) tall clock, at the corner of Water and Cambie streets, on an 1875 model. Be patient, and wait for the explosion of steam every 15 minutes. Erected in 1977, the bronze and gold clock strikes Westminster chimes every hour on the hour.