Image credit: Interior of one of the Habitat ‘76 hangars. Image courtesy Lindsay Brown.

The now empty beach front former military base current parks board space was for two glorious weeks a public meeting space. Where else and when else have Mother Teresa and Buckminister Fuller shared a platform? Vancouver is starved for public spaces. Nothing makes that more pronounced than having a lack of space for contrasts. The seawall is the largest territory of public space. Transient space. I use to have a thing for pedways. Airports. The seawall isn’t as magical since the liminal is less pronounced. More Draconian. I think technically this tour might be illegal under the parks board if we stop and rest anywhere for too long.

I walked further and further down towards the flatlands except the flatlands out here is called the beach. A little toy motorcycle zooms by me and takes a left. The jacket looks familiar. I take a right and wander up to the sandwich board where Brian greets me with a clipboard and takes my money. The sea air reminds me of how I forgot to bring a snack and I watch Michelle maw down some maki rolls and I wonder if she got them near here. Doubtful, since nothing is around here.

Lindsay starts the tour of how much nothing is around here. That bit of beach past the dock is her favorite, she says. I don’t see the dock. Invisibility begins. But I have also never been here. This is all a misunderstanding from the start. Thank goodness we are on the strand.  We are given maps, but I fold mine into my pocket and a boy folds his into an airplane. We walk towards the middle of another dock and the wind really picks up. Jericho makes me think of a song. Gordon Lightfoot. k.d. lang. Neil Young. Joni Mitchell. I have no idea who. I feel like it could be any one of them, paying tribute to any one of them. Songs are a good way to carry on these moments. I could only hear the wind and the gulls.

We are filled with questions during the invisible tour looking across at the invisible city.  The Vancouver Declaration was made along a long bar on the long beach and has all but vanished from our collective memory. Invisibility is what binds us. A gigantic Bill Reid mural was destroyed and a massive ceiling tarp has vanished. Chalk outlines have been provided to give us a sense, but chalk outlines remind me of crime scenes. Human settlements and water born deaths were the issues on the table, but Land Day was the issue that got discussed. I wasn’t even alive when Habitat occurred, but I also wasn’t alive when Star Wars occurred, and yet, somethings live on.

For more information, visit Habitat 76