After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Oh Canada! Canada Day

Canada Day 2010 saw Vancouverites doing what we love to do: coming together to play and celebrate being a community. Community celebrations like Canada Day are one example of what Mark Lakeman of City Repair in Portland, Oregon calls “placemaking” where people claim their space in their community.

Lakeman defines “placemaking” as “being as much about psychological ownership and reclamation of space as it is about physically building a place. Creating a common ground that transcends the differences among people powerfully addresses isolation and creates an environment where people feel like they can do anything they set their collective minds to.”

As well as community celebrations, other examples of placemaking in Vancouver are community gardens, car-free days, regular rallies and protests, blocks-long neighbourhood potlucks, critical mass bike rides, First Nations ceremonies, and on and on.

Street performers, events, food vendors, lineups, and crowds re-created the atmosphere of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics during Canada Day 2010 at Canada Place.

   

 

The whole diverse complexity of humanity that defines Vancouver, came to play: thousands of people all deeply grounded in the fullness of their own lives coming together to create a unified place in time of celebrating together as one community.

     

                  Everyone waving and wearing and carrying flags.

 

     

                       Friends, families, and babies all taking part.

 

     

Vancouver's wonderful multicultural family at Canada Place on Canada Day.

 

One exciting event was the relighting of the Olympic and Paralympic Cauldron at the Jack Poole Plaza.

 

                                

                                          The Cauldron

 

During the Olympics, the cauldron became Vancouver’s version of “Free Willie” because of its inaccessibility behind a chain-link fence. On Canada Day, it was free. People gathered close to connect with it and claim it.

Woman displaying peace sign in front of cauldron on Canada Day.

Of course, it would not be Canada Day without mention of what, in part, defines our Canadian identity, which is the game! A good number of people came out to re-live Sidney Crosby's Olympic, game-winning, men’s hockey goal against the United States in overtime. The last night of the Olympics, Vancouver crowds boisterously celebrated the hockey win for hours. The magic and magnificence of hockey’s golden era was re-lived in Crosby’s winning goal.

 

                                       

                                 Sidney Crosby on-screen at Canada Day

 

Yesterday at Canada Day, the crowd’s reaction to the winning goal was the same: happy joy.

 

 

Read more articles by Kathie.

More in Dimensions

Farmers on 57th: growing living food

Gardens are a natural way for community to come together: at the farmer’s garden on 57 and Cambie, people come to picnic, exercise, commune with the stars, learn about gardening, sit in the garden, su

How Vancouver reclaimed the 2010 Olympics from IOC's dominator energy

International Olympic Committee (IOC), as a controlling dominator energy, cast a dark shadow over Vancouver during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. This third article on the topic explores IOC’s attempt t

Canopy helps reclaim caribou’s forest home: 170 million acres

As one of the lead organizations in an initiative of nine environmental organizations working with 21 logging companies, the non-profit organization, Canopy, signed the Canadian Boreal Forest...
Speak up about this article on Facebook or Twitter. Do this by liking Vancouver Observer on Facebook or following us @Vanobserver on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you.