To Plan A Trip

For excellent city brochures call Tourism Vancouver (604-683-2000). According to the tourism people, the average visit to Vancouver lasts 3.5 days, not nearly enough time for, say, a day-long excursion along Howe Sound or Indian Arm, where the fjordlike scenery is spectacular. Try the SS Beaver, a replica of the first steamboat to ply these waters (604-682-7284) or sail the MV Britannica to the little logging community of Squamish and return on the Royal Hudson , the only steam-driven train in regular service in North America (604-687-9558). Leave time, too, for the utterly tranquil Dr. Sun Yat-sen Garden in the heart of Chinatown. Travel four miles west to the Museum of Anthropology, part of the University of British Columbia, which, on a dramatic promontory, holds claim to the world’s finest collection of Northwest Indian art. Downtown, near Canada Place, wander through the Art Deco Marine Building. Its intricate carvings and stone mass were meant to suggest, in the words of the architects, “some giant crag rising from the sea, clinging with sea flora and fauna, tinted in sea green and touched by gold.”