Canada Day 6 - Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler

We packed so many things into our one full day in the Vancouver area (and still didn’t scratch the surface of all we could do). The first part of the day was spent finding Virgin River filming locations. Apparently, all of our favorite shows are in Canada…aside from Gilmore Girls but the pilot was filmed in Canada so that counts. Our first stop was Doc’s clinic in New Westminster.

The clinic just happened to be right across the street from Queen’s Park so of course we had to tour the park in Her Majesty’s honor.

Next we headed over to Burnaby to see Doc and Hope’s house, which is across the street from the park where Paige’s Bakeaway truck is filmed.

Then we headed to North Vancouver to Murdo Fraser Park where Mel’s cabin is located.

Then we hopped on the incredible Sea to Sky Highway to head up to Squamish. We tried to find the locations of all the incredible waterfall shots in the opening scenes of Virgin River but couldn’t find a list. Shannon Falls was one on the list, which was right off the highway. It was beautiful and we kept saying the forest looked like the Enchanted Forest. We later found out that this area was used as the Enchanted Forest in Once Upon a Time.

We stopped in Brackendale for lunch at the Watershed Grill, which is the exterior for Jack’s Bar. We ate outside on the patio with the beautiful Squamish River behind us.

At the recommendation of the Canadians on our tour in Hope Valley (side note, the Canadians truly are the nicest people), we hopped back on the Sea to Sky Highway to drive up to Whistler. On the way up, we stopped to see Brandywine Falls, which may be the most impressive waterfall I’ve seen in person.

We enjoyed walking around Whistler ski village and seeing where the Olympics were held in 2010. I also realized that we just missed being there at the same time as Prince Harry and Meghan for the Invictus Games.

After we left Whistler Village, we took a detour to see another waterfall that was on the way up to Olympic Park. We just happened to be on that small road at just the right time of day because we passed 3 different black bears snacking on the side of the road. We were quick to get some pictures of the waterfall because we did not want to run into any other bears outside of the car.

We headed back down the Sea to Sky Highway making multiple stops along the way for pictures of the gorgeous view.

Next we stopped at Queen Elizabeth Park in downtown Vancouver. There we got to see the oak tree planted by Her Majesty during her first visit to Vancouver when she was still Princess Elizabeth. I couldn’t get enough of all the tributes to the Royal family in Canada!

We ended our trip with a visit to the beach to see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. This time away to celebrate the end of cancer treatments was exactly what we needed after such a hard year and a half. And we could not have picked a more beautiful place to celebrate that huge milestone. The only problem is that we packed so much into our time there but still didn’t get to see everything so now we want to go back. Western Canada holds a special place in our hearts!