A few facts to start. Vancouver is one of the country’s most diverse cities, with English not being the first language of half the population. Most of its residents are what the government of Canada labels “visible minorities.” Which is laughable and, at best, ethnocentric. When a majority is deemed in minority. In other words, not white. While this sprawl of humanity continues to rank as one of the world’s most livable cities, as well as being one of the most expensive.

Search the city, online or in person, and what you find tends to loop, descriptors repeating in soundbites and slogans: scenic views, mild climate, unparalleled natural beauty, ocean and mountains and living outdoors. An online snippet I read poses the seemingly simple question, “Is Vancouver a good or bad city?” One reply makes me smile. “Yes, it is.” While another answer offers much more. “It’s a lovely city, one of the world’s most beautiful, provided you can afford to enjoy it.” And therein lies a rub. The rub, perhaps. One of an endless array of puzzles and queries surrounding the city of Vancouver.

I’ve lived here for almost four decades. It’s my home here on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land. And while I’ve lived in many of its neighbourhoods, much of it will forever feel new. Not merely new buildings but a recurring burble of the unfamiliar, fuelling a sense of discovery each time I step out the front door, as though I’m a tourist, explorer, or adventurer. Here, where I live and I work.

Exploration and discovery, however, unveil further questions. What exactly am I seeing out there? Who made it like this? Why’s it this way? And what will it be like tomorrow? Questions that drive me to examine this city, needing to better comprehend its “sea, land and air,” scenic views and natural beauty. Something I’m doing on foot.

I could rattle off quotes about the imperativeness of walking to truly experience a place, but that’s neither fair nor accurate. A bus or a train may accomplish the very same thing. Mobility might vary. But for me, feet and legs are a preferred mode of transport. Rousseau stated he could only think when he walked. A part of me feels the same way. While novelist Flann O’Brien claimed every step we take actually infuses some of the paths that we travel, an ingestion of places we wander. So for now, I’ll be walking, slowing my pace to better absorb this city, see what questions I answer and what else I reveal. Here in Vancouver, my home.

The morning brightens as I make my way north into Kits, or Kitsilano, named for Squamish chief August Jack Khatsahlano. Passing the retail of West Fourth Avenue, I walk a few blocks to the mouth of False Creek, past the Maritime Museum of Vancouver, where a leafy deciduous houses a bald eagle’s nest. The twig-and-stick home was moved a few years ago, having served generations of bald eagles where it perched in Vanier Park’s highest tree, a towering poplar. According to local birders, a breeding pair also lived under the Granville Street Bridge, like two feathered trolls, but all I’ve ever seen in those high metal rafters are pigeons and cormorants.

The bridge now overhangs the Sen̓áḵw construction site. At present, “the largest First Nations economic development project in Canadian history.” An expansive initiative slated for multiple towers and a few thousand new homes. According to its builders, Sen̓áḵw translates to “the place inside the head of False Creek,” literally placing it on the map. On the south side of the bridge, just east of its trusses and towers, for years, I would pass two cedar carvings, no longer here. Tall totems depicting traditional Salish greetings of welcome, known as O’Siem, with palms held open, inward, and up. It’s an expression of gratitude, too. Fitting in this coastal enclave, the inlet narrows to False Creek, a watery entrance to the city.

No one seems to know where the totemic statues have gone. Maybe they wandered off, tired of the noise of construction. But the site will be a version of this for a decade, with cranes surrounding the bridge, the look of new towers, latticed trusses in red-painted steel. The ground, too, is being reborn, construction rising from plummeting pits. Here the land is clay over sandstone and shale. A bit north, we’d hit granite, the metamorphic coastal expanse, igneous rock from bygone volcanoes.

I find a series of plaques, Places That Matter, Vancouver Heritage Foundation installations I could use to plot a course across the city, a trail of breadcrumbs through time. According to Musqueam First Nation historians:

The area now known as Burrard Inlet is host to numerous Musqueam villages, camps, and transformer sites. It was connected by water ways, trails, histories, and genealogies to other villages throughout our territory. Burrard Inlet was also part of our core hunting and fishing area. Our families stayed here while hunting elk and waterfowl. Sən̓aʔqʷ (Sen̓áḵw) was also important for harvesting and processing salmon, sturgeon, and smelt that frequented False Creek and its many streams, many of which have been lost to urbanization and development.

The notion of historical trails, that infusion of paths that we travel, lingers as I deviate to another spur path, tamped by a few thousand feet, what would have been shaded by totems now a small arboretum. Cultural Harmony Grove. The name alone inducing a peacefulness. My pace slows as I weave between trees. Cedar and maple, crabapple, windmill palms, even a monkey puzzle tree, stretching and poking the sky. There’s dogwood and birch, foxglove and snowbell. Names that rattle into a poem. I retrace my steps and recite the flora, concocting a potion or spell. All I need is eye-of-newt for something a wizard might conjure.

By the pocket of park a sign warns of coyotes next to a palm tree, a small gnarly spruce, and the buttressed wood-end to what was a rail- and trolley-car bridge. A pair of crows have alighted where the two totems stood, leaving me to wonder if they’re related, placeholders perhaps, standing guard until the totems return.

The white noise of traffic hums from the bridge, a moan of trusses and towers. Underneath are rock reinforcements in gabion wire. I’ve retraced my steps, westbound, past a Coast Guard station. Which was here, then it wasn’t, now it’s back. Different budgets and electoral promises.

Through a corridor of poplar and beech, an extension is being added to a pier, a crane hoisting huge slabs into place. Behind me, a transition of Vanier Park outdoor events. The Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival happens here in the summer: tented marquees, flapping flags with bunting and spinnaker, the feel of a medieval fete.