Through the Cascade Mountains

Boarded the bus and drove through the Cascade Mountains to Vancouver.  The Cascades are not as high as the Rockies and are seldom rise above the tree line.  However, the gorges or valleys are so deep that the mountains appear higher.  Crops included hay which was irrigated and range land. There was very little traffic until we got with 75 miles of Vancouver.  Traffic picked up.  Along side the road there were many berry patches (looked like raspberries and blue berries), potato patches, other truck crops, and grapes, too.  Our destination was the fishing village of Steveston.  We explored the shops and then had lunch at the Blue Canoe.  Then we visited the Cannery Museum which had been an active salmon cannery from the 1890 until 1930. Our guide gave us the tour and we watched a film about the process of catching fish (Sockeye, coho, pink, chum, and king) all the way through to putting the labels on the cans. It was also a story of who fished (Japanese and First Nation), who owned the factory (whites), who butchered (Chinese), who cleaned them (women),and who put the cans in the dispenser (children 8 - 13).  Interesting!  Back to the bus and to Hotel Blue Horizon.  After a quick check-in, we went to Zefferelli’s for dinner.
We have just started to explore Vancouver but so far we have noticed huge bridges, small houses built on very small lots.  Some houses had front ‘walls’ made of very thick, high hedges.  Tomorrow we will find out more.