The VICE Guide to Vancouver

Photo by Dale De Ruiter

Vancouver is a wonderfully fucked-up city. It has the most temperate climate of anywhere in Canada. You’ve got every kind of recreation at your fingertips. The scenery is beautiful, what with the mountains and beaches and ocean and all. It’s constantly in the top five best places in the world in which to live. And it’s a drug town. Heroin flooded the city in the 50s and never left. You can order crack faster than a pizza here. Get as high as you want—we’ll even give you the drugs—just don’t bother applying for a new liquor license. You won’t get one because while we’ve got a tolerant approach to heroin addiction we are violently opposed to alcohol. You can watch strippers get totally naked and drink yourself retarded till two in the morning but you can’t buy a six-pack past 11 PM. You can shoot heroin or cocaine or whatever the hell you want, legally, as long as you are in a designated shooting gallery, but you can’t walk down the street with a beer. Pot is practically a currency and now it’s the largest industry in the province, making organized crime the managers of our largest industry. This sitch often proves slightly violent. Nightclub shootings and drug overdoses are Vancouver’s Malthusian slip. Also, I don’t know what it is about this place that your average Quebecois crust-punk finds so damn appealing, besides of course the warm climate, easy access to drugs, and ability to squeegee all year round, but I mean, come on, enough already. If one more Francophonic crusty asks me for money or “Where is all da pot?” I’m gonna kick his dog in the balls. That said, most people with any intelligence or creativity whatsoever who still live in Vancouver eventually move to Montréal, so I guess it balances out. Here’s ten more reasons why Vancouver is so great, just to seal the deal: 1. The job market is about to explode because having to hear about the 2010 Olympics every day for the next four years is going to triple the city’s suicide rate. 2. The guy who invented lululemon pants lives here. I know, you’re welcome.  3. It rains 385 days of the year.  4. Gay people love it here. Not only is there a part of town where rainbows fly proudly and parades parade, um, gaily, but the city actually painted the bus shelters, benches, and garbage cans in the West End pink. It’s almost enough to make you jump around and squeal like a little girl. Almost. 5. Ninety-five percent of folks that live here are not from here. Most aren’t even from Canada. 6. Japanese people own and run most of the city, making sushi pretty much fast food. 7. Vancouver is known as Hollywood North because about half the films Hollywood releases are filmed here. This means that every other week traffic is disrupted because some b-grade actor has to chase Ben Affleck down an alley. 8. Gastown, Vancouver’s oldest historical district, is named after a saloon owner, Gassy Jack, so designated because he farted so much. It still lives up to its name in a sense, only now it’s also the gateway to Shitsville, home of the poorest, most fucked-up postal code in Canada.  9. There are two bridges, one with only three lanes, between North and West Vancouver and the rest of the world. This means that an accident or a couple stalled cars can strand thousands of people, but it only happens several times a week. 10.Nickelback records each new album here… and we’re so, so sorry. Planning a visit? Just remember this: Vancouver is a lot like a hot young girl—she looks good, smells good, and is firm and soft in all the right places, but is ultimately a naively cocky mess of contradictions that can’t hold her liquor. Have fun!