Flat Stanley's visit

watch out for falling bulletin boards

My class has sent Flat Stanleys on many adventures - but this is the first time that I have hosted a Flat Stanley.  Here is the visit - in Stanley's words.


When I arrived in my envelope -- it was a good trip out from Ontario and my sandwich was very tasty --  I said that he wanted to see a bit of BC before I went back home.

Luckily Aunt Sandi was heading out to Vancouver that evening.  The ferry ride was pretty cool.  I like how the cars all drove onto the ferry.

Aunt Sandi was at a workshop all day and I wanted to see Vancouver, so I headed into town on the skytrain by myself.  

Vancouver Planetarium, Olympic Flame, Canada Place, Stanley Park

Vancouver is the biggest city in BC - just under 3 million people live there.  It also has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in North America - about 52% of the population's first language is not English and 35% of the population was not born in Canada.  Many people from Asian countries have moved to Vancouver.

We took the ferry (one of the really big, fancy ones) back to Vancouver Island.  It sailed through the Gulf Islands - they are very pretty to see from the ferry.  Sometimes people are really lucky and get to see killer whales.  But not this time.  Oh well.  

After getting back from Vancouver, I got to go to school with Aunt Sandi to celebrate Earth Day.  I joined all the kindergarten kids for a picnic lunch (we ate on the floor instead of at the tables) and watched the cartoon of The Lorax.  I got to hang out with some of the other boys.  They are nice guys.

After helping with some chores

Aunt Sandi and I spent a day in Victoria.  Victoria is the capital of British Columbia. About 350,000 people live there.  After Anna was finished her classes at university, we went to get her, and then went sightseeing. We saw ...

 the Legislature

 the Inner Harbour

 a totem pole - 

Totem poles were used by First Nations people in parts of BC to tell the story of their family.

the entrance to Chinatown

Victoria has the second oldest Chinatown in North America

Victoria is well known for its beautiful flowers.

On the way home, I said very politely, that I was a bit hungry and that a couple of Timbits would tide me over until we got back home.  Aunt Sandi is very nice : )

I hung out with Evan for a few days doing "guy stuff".

Aunt Sandi and Uncle Richard took me on a tour of Chemainus.

The Penelakut people were the first people to live the in the area around Chemainus.  This is a replica of the front of a long house (where a group of related families lived) in Chemainus. 

A famous artist called Emily Carr spent a lot of time with the First Nations people in coastal BC and painted pictures of what she saw. (she is even on the Chemainus one dollar bill!)

Europeans saw that Chemainus had a harbour that was good for loading ships, a strong river that could run a watermill and lots of big trees close by.  It was the perfect place for building a sawmill. This is a replica of the waterwheel that powered the original sawmill.

This is the mill today.  About 150 people work here.  All the saws are computerized.  Booms of wood wait in the water to be cut into lumber.  You can see the packaged lumber waiting for the big cargo ships (there is a deep water port)  to come and load up with lumber and take it to markets - mostly Japan.

The trees on Vancouver Island are BIG. Aunt Sandi and Uncle Richard took me to a forest park right in the middle of Chemainus where there are some old growth trees.  That means that they have been growing for hundreds of years.  Uncle Richard figures that this tree is at least 350-400 years old.  It is so tall that I felt dizzy looking at the top of it.

The last stop on our tour was the beach.  When it is a really low tide, Aunt Sandi said that you can walk all the way out to the lighthouse.  There are lots of tide pools among the rocks out there and you can see starfish, and shy sea cucumbers.

Since we could not explore the rocks by the lighthouse, we lifted up rocks by the shore to find crabs.  That's fun!

Then we went home to eat cookies.

Aunt Sandi says that she is going to clone me (she promises that it will not hurt).  Then I can go home to Ontario, AND have adventures in London, England with Anna and go to New Zealand to visit some friends there.

I am going to wiggle back into my envelope - it will be a bit more of a squish, since Aunt Sandi found some things to bring back with me.

See you soon.