Sports, Vancouver

Water sports are a big part of life in Vancouver. There are numerous marinas and all manner of watercrafts are available for rent. Dragonboating is my preferred watersport. It requires 20 paddlers, one steersperson and a drummer. We train in the city's False Creek area until the Alcan Dragonboat Festival which takes place on the third weekend of June. There are over 200 teams that participate in the Festival races (in various divisions) from all over the world. At the world championships in England last year Vancouver's False Creek women's team won the women's title! Other B.C. dragonboat festivals take place in Victoria and Kelowna during the summer.
Here's a link to the results from last year's festival:
http://www.canadadragonboat.com/

Vancouver is full of people posing as Vancouverites in costumes based on pre-conceptions of what the west coast is like. Don't be fooled by the dude in Mountain Equipment Co-op clothing who talks too much about his latest rock-climbing conquest, or by the pretentious new age freak in the convertable BMW. They may both be from Toronto. These are caricatures of west coast culture. The real thing is usually more subtle.

1. Vancouverites are out there doing it -- not sitting around talking about it -- and as such are often difficult to find.
2. Vancouver does not hold a monopoly on west coast Canadian culture -- it's just one small town in a big province