False Creek is the name given to an inlet that stretches some four kilometers from English Bay into the heart of Vancouver, marked by the huge silver sphere of Science World. Meandering under three bridges, past Granville Island (which is not an island), and between numerous parks, False Creek offers tourists from near and far plenty of activity options. We recently spent the day exploring the area by water, hopping on and off the ferry as we traveled up and down the inlet.
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Getting to False Creek
If you are driving to False Creek, expect to pay for parking. We drove to Granville Island and began our adventure there, paying about $30 to park for the day. During the summer, parking in this area will be busy; try to plan a non-peak visit or take transit. The skytrain stops near Science World, giving you the perfect place to start your adventures for the day.
Two ferry companies operate on False Creek: the blue False Creek Ferries and the multi-coloured Aquabus. The False Creek Ferries operate 3 routes to 9 docks around False Creek, with varying schedules (usually 5 minutes apart for the route from Granville Island to Science World), and sells tickets per route or day via the operators. The Aquabus is bike and wheelchair accessible and operates one route between 8 docks (missing the Vancouver Maritime Museum), with has tickets available online.
Our Day on False Creek
We started exploring from Granville Island, where the dock lay in the shadow of the early morning. While we waited for the ferry to arrive, the kids had fun looking around at the local landmarks (including the Burrard Street Bridge across from us), watching other boats go by, and checking out the barnacles on the bottom of the dock.
We didn’t have long to wait for our water taxi to arrive, and soon we were settled on board, tapping a credit card to get our day passes. There’s plenty to see on either side of False Creek as the boat putters up the inlet. We discussed various sculptures, the cormorants drying their wings under the bridge, the architecture of the skyscrapers soaring up from the seawall. Pearl used her binoculars to try to see more details up and down the inlet.
Our first stop was David Lam Park, where the kids played on the playground and we visited the washrooms. We also walked along the seawall to check out several sculptures we could see from the park. “Red Horizontal” is a porcelain tile installation of various living rooms that lines the walkway just above sea level. “Marking High Tide and Waiting for Low Tide” looks like a huge concrete gazebo standing in the water. At low tide, it may be possible to circle the entire sculpture, but the tide was in just far enough that we could only walk part way around.
Further along, another sculpture boasted numerous solar panels and more cormorants. Meant to depict a calligraphy brush, “Brush with Illumination” adjusts to environmental conditions and actually records data. (We later found a brochure of Vancouver’s public art, giving more detail of the artwork and its intent, because we were seriously confused by some of the art we saw. It’s a what???)
Getting back on the ferry, we skipped a couple stops and got off at the Plaza of Nations. This boasted a fancy glass building and a lot of (rather ragged) Canadian flags, but little else. There’s a couple swing sets and climbing domes set up here, and space to play basketball, but otherwise, there’s little reason to stop here (unless you’re heading to nearby BC Place).
Our next stop was Science World, at the end of the inlet. Here, we wandered a little way “downtown” in search of coffee. While it was a very sunny day, the air was chilly. And, okay, I’m used to having my second coffee about that time. We found a local coffee shop and got coffees for ourselves and hot chocolates for the kids, which were gone by the time we reached the park at Science World. That was fine—they needed their hands to run and play.
The playground at Vancouver’s Science World is hands-down the best playground around. My girls spent most of their time on the zipline, with my partner pulling them back up to the top, while my son climbed repeatedly to the top of the climbing tower, played soccer with a little boy from Brazil, slid down the frosty hill on his butt, and spun through the merry-go-round. When he discovered the sandbox, I was able to sit down and drink my coffee and finish playing my New York Times word games for the day.
We then made a dash to Andy Livingstone Park to find a washroom, which was as sketchy as Google maps advised, as numerous homeless people hang out there. We had a discussion with the kids about what to do if they saw used needles like those ones there, and then got back to Concord Community Park as quickly as we could. (I’d try the washrooms at the Skytrain station in the future.) We ate our packed lunch at the picnic tables there, then decided to walk back along the seawall to Plaza of Nations, where we caught the water taxi again.
We hopped off at Yaletown and walked up a block to the Roundhouse Community Centre. Here we found indoor, clean washrooms and a water bottle refill station, as well as the historic Engine 374. This locomotive pulled the first passenger train into Vancouver in May 1887 and now sits in a glass pavilions as a heritage monument. Kids can explore the locomotive, pull the bell, play with a nearby train table, observe a model train run around its track, and even browse local books about the engine and railroad.
From there, we walked back to David Lam Park to catch our ferry again. We rode back to Granville Island and then waited for the ferry out to the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The kids immediately noticed the difference in how the ferry behaved as we left behind the narrow confines of the inlet and started into English Bay. The ferry began to hit the swells, especially when a yacht cruised past us, and they decided they didn’t really like the rocking. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long ride before we got off again.
Like Science World, we didn’t stop at the museum here but instead headed for the beach. Despite the cool temperatures, the kids were happy to look under rocks for crabs, dig in the sand, and play tag with the waves. We visited the washrooms (hey, I drink coffee and travel with kids) and watched the boats go by until our ferry returned for us.
Plan Your Trip around False Creek
Overall, we had a fantastic day exploring False Creek by water taxi. It was fun to hop on and off the boat as we wanted to and to find out more about the various attractions, sculptures, and parks around the area. The ferries offer a quick and easy way to move between various points along False Creek, with minimal waits for the next boat to come along.
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