vancouver Archives • Michael Russell Photography

Bog Plants in Vancouver’s Camosun Bog

July 7, 2022July 5, 2022

Round-Leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) at Camosun Bog in Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Round-Leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) at Camosun Bog (Purchase)

In June I’d seen a number of people on Twitter talking about Camosun Bog in Pacific Spirit Park as a good spot for various flowering bog species at the time, so I decided to head out there and see what was still in bloom. I was also thinking a lot about the possibility of seeing Sundews again, a species I haven’t seen in person since a University trip to Burns Bog back in 1999 or so. I visited Camosun Bog for the very first time last September. As this followed the Heat dome natural disaster earlier that year and a relatively dry/hot summer, things were pretty crispy in Camosun bog then. After a lot of rain this winter the bog looked replenished and relatively healthy this spring. I was a bit too late for a good flower display from the Bog Laurels, but there was more than enough species of interest to spend over an hour making photographs.

The first plants I looked for were the Sundews which were easy to spot and fairly plentiful. The photograph above shows a rather large group of them mixed in with some Sphagnum moss and decaying leaves from last year. This particular species is the Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). Like other Sundews, the Round-leaved Sundew is a carnivorous plant, and more specifically an insectivore. The photograph below is a zoomed in version of another Sundew plant I photographed, and shows the sticky red tentacle-like hairs that tempt insects both with their red colour and nectar in order to trap and then digest them.

Round-Leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) at Camosun Bog (Purchase)

The next species I photographed were these flowering Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) plants. I’ve seen Bunchberry before in person and in other photographs, but had not made images of them myself until now. I’d always thought they looked like miniature Pacific Dogwood Flowers (Cornus nuttallii) and there is good reason for that, they are in the same genus – Cornus. Bunchberry, unlike its larger cousin, grows as a relatively short ground cover in fairly moist forest floor/bog environments. The flowers mature into glossy red berries.

Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) flowers at Camosun Bog (Purchase)

I also made several images of Northern Starflower (Trientalis arctica) plants, which were mostly blooming when I visited Camosun Bog. I am not entirely sure which is the preferred name for this species, but it is also often listed as Arctic Starflower (Trientalis europaea ssp. arctica).

Northern Starflower (Trientalis arctica) (Purchase)

One of the most recognizable species in a bog, Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum). Labrdor Tea isn’t as flashy as a lot of the other species such as flowering Bog Laurels, but does have these very nice white flowers in the spring. As the name suggests, the leaves can be used to make a tea (steeped, not boiled) which is described as “floral” in flavouring. Labrador Tea resembles a rhododendron, and for good reason – an alternative name for it is Rhododendron groenlandicum.

labrador tea flowers ledum gorenlandicum

Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum) Flowers (Purchase)

The most commonly thought of plant in a bog is likely Sphagnum Moss (Genus Sphagnum). I am unsure as to which species this photograph below illustrates, as there are roughly 12 species of Sphagnum in Camosun Bog alone! I do try to ID every species/place/mountain/building I feature in a photograph, but sometimes I have to draw a line!

Sphagnum Moss (Genus Sphagnum) (Purchase)

For more photographs of Native and Wild plants of Southwestern British Columbia visit my Native and Wild Plants Gallery.

Views from Jericho Pier and Locarno Beach

March 13, 2022

A sailboat sails on English Bay past the West End neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Sailboat on English Bay near the West End of Vancouver (Purchase)

While it was technically the first full day of fall, an evening I spent last September taking in the views from Jericho Pier and Locarno Beach felt like a late summer evening. There were plenty of people enjoying both the beach and the waters of English Bay. I don’t think anyone was swimming but I saw everything from yachts to sailboats down to paddleboards and kayaks all over the water. A lot of my photos from this evening either have sailboats in them or I had to wait a while until they passed. The photograph above was made of the West End and Downtown Vancouver after sunset from Jericho Pier. The two taller towers are the Paradox Hotel (left) which recently has mercifully been renamed from a previously embarrassing moniker, and the tower in the middle is a hotel called Living Shangri-La.

A cloud lit by sunset over English Bay (Purchase)

I don’t often find that a sunset is a subject of much interest in itself. The light at that time can be great, but I tend to be facing somewhere other than west when one is occurring. These freighters were among the many ubiquitously anchored in English bay waiting to load or offload. As seen in the photograph below, I was keeping an eye on the mountains the northwest as a good background. When this one strip of cloud lit up from the sunset I walked a bit to line it up with the two freighters. I made this photograph, like many others on that evening, from Jericho Pier. I’d not visited this pier before, but it seemed like an area that would have good views in many directions, and so after walking around Locarno and Jericho beach areas I settled on it as a spot for the later evening photographs. Unfortunately, like Cultus Lake and a few other locations I visited this fall, the storms this past fall and winter were not kind to Jerico Pier. A strong windstorm during a King tide destroyed some of the pier and it has been closed. Much like the damage to White Rock Pier when a dock and sailboats were bashed against it, Jericho wasn’t able to remain intact after high tides and winds battered it with stray logs/trees from English Bay. The pier remains closed, and I’m not sure if there are plans to repair it.

Students from the Jericho Sailing Centre sail on English Bay (Purchase)

As I mentioned earlier there were a lot of sailboats in English Bay on this evening. This group appeared to be a sailing class from the Jericho Sailing Centre nearby. With the Point Atkinson Lighthouse (in West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park) and the Tetrahedron Range (Panther peak and Tetrahedron peak on the Sunshine Coast) in the background I made a photo quickly before they came into the frame. I then thought I should try one including them and I like both results.

west end of vancouver panorama english bay evening

West End and Downtown Vancouver skyline in the early evening (Purchase)

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I do enjoy making photographs of downtown Vancouver and that subject is often one that calls (to me) for a panorama. This photograph shows the buildings of the West End and Downtown areas of the City of Vancouver as viewed from Jericho Pier. On the left you can just spot the Inukshuk at English Bay Beach with Kits Point on the right. I don’t find this skyline nearly as interesting as the view of downtown from Stanley Park but with tall new buildings going up all the time the character is likely to change.

Sunset at English Bay (Purchase)

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This is an example of a typical sunset photograph of mine – facing east! The light from sunset made a great, warm, glow on the buildings of Vancouver. You can just see the “Golden Ears” of Mount Blanshard and Blanshard Needle peeking out above Eagle Mountain in the background.

For more photographs from this evening and the City of Vancouver visit the Vancouver Gallery in my Image Library.

A few Random Photos from Stanley Park in Vancouver

January 25, 2021

Fall foliage colors on Maple trees along the Stanley Park Seawall at the west end of Coal Harbour.

fall leaves on the stanley park seawall coal harbour vancouver

Fall Foliage along the Stanley Park Seawall in Vancouver (Purchase)

Last Fall I made several trips into Burnaby and Vancouver to photograph various areas – and twice I wound up at Vancouver’s Stanley Park as my late afternoon/evening destination. Fall foliage in 2020 was hit and miss, and in some areas just plain bad. In this part of Vancouver, however, it was pretty decent in many places. Stanley Park is always a good spot to look for fall foliage, and even if there isn’t any, I never dislike an evening spent there. Even in the rain! After a walk around Lost Lagoon and a few other park areas, I headed further towards downtown to Devonian Harbour Park and made this photograph of a few people walking along the Seawall with some good fall leaves as a backdrop. This location is next to the Vancouver Rowing Club building at the west end of Coal Harbour.

Colourful lights on the sails of Canada Place (Purchase)

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I have photographed Canada Place many times, but not always at a higher resolution, so I made the above photograph and a few others to change that. Zoomed in at 100% you can’t tell the title of a book someone on one of the benches is reading, but you can tell what colour the cover is! I was going to make some panoramas including Canada Place and the Trade and Convention Centre next door, but the pandemic thwarted those plans. Not only are there not conventions going on at the moment, but some floors of the newer Convention Centre space are still reserved for a makeshift hospital should the pandemic overwhelm local hospitals (which has not happened, luckily). As a consequence all the lights on many of its floors are off. It just doesn’t look great in the evening with the lights off, so I skipped it entirely. Canada Place is my favourite anyway, and I like this colour scheme of lights on the “sails”. Sometimes I don’t like the colours used here, and really do prefer the light projections they had back in 2012. Not sure how often these are changed, but I liked the 2020 version.

Lost Lagoon

Evening light on trees along the shore of Lost Lagoon at Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Purchase)

I have visited Lost Lagoon many times in Stanley Park, but had never walked all the way around it. I fixed that in October and walked the entire loop. There was not much left in the way of fall leaves, but I did like the scene above in the way that the light lit up the edges of the trees (mostly Red Alder, here) even without their leaves. I didn’t photograph the waterfowl around the lagoon much at all, as I knew I had a lot of those kinds of photographs from my earlier trips to Burnaby Lake Regional Park. I did photograph the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) below on the walk though. This one seemed to be having a bit of a dispute with the passing Wood Ducks who swam really close on their way by. This Heron was opening up its beak and making a lot of squawking noises to tell them to keep their distance (I presume). Songbirds they are not!

great blue heron at lost lagoon at stanley park in vancouver

A Mildly Irked Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) at Lost Lagoon at Stanley Park (Purchase)

Brockton Point Lighthouse

Sunset Lights Up The Sky Behind the Brockton Point Lighthouse (Purchase)

I enjoy sunset light and while I don’t often sit around and wait for it, I am always happy to use it when available. When I stopped at Brockton Point in Stanley Park to photograph the Brockton Point Lighthouse and various subjects in North Vancouver, I got lucky with some high cloud that turned a nice pink colour. The Brockton Point Lighthouse was built in 1914 and sits along the northeast part of the Stanley Park seawall. The area gives nice views of Burrard Inlet, North Vancouver, the Lions Gate Bridge, as well as downtown and the Port of Vancouver. A bit later in the evening I made this panorama of the view of North Vancouver with Mount Seymour behind it. There are a lot of new towers and construction since I last photographed North Van from across the inlet, but the shipping traffic is omnipresent. While I’d prefer they weren’t in the photograph, I included the large bulk carrier Federal Illinois on the right as that kind of ship is a very frequent presence on the water there. I plan on making this photograph again when I am able to get back to Stanley Park while there is some snow on the mountains.

North Vancouver and Mount Seymour from Brockton Point in Stanley Park (Purchase)

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Lumberman’s Arch

Lumberman’s Arch and a path through a double row of London Plane Trees (Platanus x acerifolia) (Purchase)

Originally this area was a village site called Xwáýxway before the Federal Government “claimed it” as their own. The Lumberman’s Arch above was erected in 1952, replacing an older arch called the Bowie Arch which was dismantled in 1947. The gravel path in this photograph winds south through the Lumberman’s Arch picnic area, past the Aquarium (behind the green fence on the left) to the Japanese Canadian War Memorial and beyond. The trees lining this path are called London Plane Trees (Platanus x acerifolia) and this appears to be the only spot they are planted in Stanley Park.

When I was in this same area a week later I photographed the Lions Gate Bridge from the Stanley Park Seawall. I’ve always liked this bridge at night with the reflection off the water of Burrard Inlet and the lights of West Vancouver beyond. This is a scene that I often shoot as a panorama as it fits the shape of the bridge well, and it eliminates a distracting, lighter coloured sky above that can happen during sunsets. There is no sky in the photograph below. The Lions Gate Bridge was opened in 1938 and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2005. The official name of the bridge is actually the First Narrow Bridge, though I rarely hear it actually called that.

lions gate bridge at night from stanley park

Lights illuminate the Lions Gate Bridge and the waters of Burrard Inlet at night (Purchase)

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Painter’s Circle

Fall Foliage at Painter’s Circle in Stanley Park (Purchase)

Painter’s Circle is one of the areas in Stanley Park where artists (but not photographers) can sell their work with a permit. I liked these 3 park benches in Painter’s Circle lined up with the fall leaves behind them and made this photograph. I am not sure what species of trees these are, and normally that would really bother me but since so many different, non-native species are planted in Stanley Park this isn’t unusual. In some cases I can find mention of them such as the London Plane trees near the Lumbermans’ Arch above, but this is a bit more of an obscure location. These look to be much younger trees and perhaps do not have as well a documented history. I should have tried the app Seek by iNaturalist on them but I didn’t remember to do so at the time. Sometimes I’ll take a closeup of leaves on a plant I can’t identify and that app will ID right off the computer screen too. Even if it doesn’t know the species it quite often points me in the right direction. Really useful app!

More photos from Stanley Park can be found in my Stanley Park Gallery.

View of Vancouver and North Vancouver from Burnaby Mountain

March 13, 2019

View of Vancouver, North Vancouver, and beyond – from Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.

view of the city of vancouver after sunset from above

View of Vancouver, North Vancouver, and Burnaby (Purchase)

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As with many of my better images these photos of a view of Vancouver were not really planned. I had a plan, but when that fell through (as they often do) I had to adjust (more on that later). This is the view of Vancouver from the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area near Simon Fraser University. I’ve been surprised both times I’ve photographed here that I have not seen other photographers (beyond those with cell phones) as the view is quite popular. When I went to school at SFU this was a busy area at sunset as people parked their cars to watch (and do other things) – and this was much the same last week when I was on Burnaby Mountain. Two separate people were even brought by their drivers, and had their own security. Why this area is popular is understandable as the view is spectacular on a nice day!

The panorama above shows many notable buildings and locations in and around Vancouver (best viewed in the larger “lightbox” version if you click on the smaller version above). On the left the blue lights are from BC Place and above the stadium you can see Mount Arrowsmith on Vancouver Island. Then we have the towers of the downtown area of the City of Vancouver and the Port of Vancouver structures next to Burrard Inlet. Beyond Vancouver you can see other areas of Vancouver Island (including the light of Nanaimo), and ships waiting to load/unload in English Bay. The darker area before you get to the Lions Gate Bridge is Stanley Park, and then you have the bridge itself, and the lights of the City of North Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver. In the foreground you have Capitol Hill in north Burnaby (I can see the house I lived in for a few years in this photo), and then the Burnaby Refinery (Parkland) next to Burrard Inlet.

View of Vancouver from Burnaby Mountain after sunset. (Purchase)

I had initially planned to photograph a few scenes in Port Moody (which I was able to do) and then photograph some blue hour photos of snow on the mountains to the north (Mount Seymour, etc). I didn’t expect a sunset due to cloud cover and I have had a few ideas for those photos for a few years. It became immediately clear that there was not a lot of snow on the mountains (visible) and that plan was going to have to be abandoned.

When I was editing these photos I was reflecting whether these images would have been possible for me to make maybe even 5 years ago. My camera at the time would have done a good job, but I’m not sure I’d have been able to get in the right position and more importantly, the right frame of mind, to make these photos. I used to over plan my photography days, and if I’d shown up here to make blue hour photos of mountains covered in snow (and not found those scenes) I might have still been stewing on this and unable to make the transition to shooting something else. You just can only shoot what is actually there, and even if that thing isn’t what you initially wanted or expected, there is almost always something else to photograph. Knowing more about what locations are nearby and what potential they have also helps! Even if you photograph nothing at a location, seeing what might be possible there in the future can help a lot.

For more of my photographs of Vancouver visit my Vancouver Gallery.

Vancouver Convention Centre

December 7, 2017April 29, 2017

The Vancouver Convention Centre and the North Shore Mountains in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

vancouver convention center and the northshore mountains in british columbia canada

Vancouver Convention Center and the Northshore Mountains (Purchase)

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Last week I traveled to Vancouver to photograph some of the downtown area as well as any potentially lingering cherry blossoms in Stanley Park. Stanley Park is often a relatively quick trip for me, even coming from the Fraser Valley, but this time it took me about 65 minutes to get from the Cambie Bridge into the park. Gridlock isn’t nearly as much fun as photography! When I finally got into Stanley Park I stopped at the first parking spot I came to, paid my exorbitant $13 for a few hours of parking, and went looking for blossoms. I didn’t find many, though the daffodils and some tulips looked great. After walking around Stanley Park for an hour (time never wasted) I went along the seawall to photograph Canada Place, the Vancouver Convention Centre, and anything else I found. Normally I have photographed those two buildings from Stanley Park but it was time for new perspectives.

The first photograph here shows the view looking north from the sidewalk between the east side of the Vancouver Convention Centre and Canada Place. I liked this angle as it not only showed some of the form of the centre and placed it well in the usual backdrop familiar to those who have visited Vancouver – the North Shore Mountains and Burrard Inlet. The two main mountains you can see here in the background are Crown Mountain and Mount Fromme. Grouse Mountain is the one with the ski hill lights on it. The blue, teardrop shaped sculpture seen at the end of the building is another familiar thing to those visiting Vancouver – the raindrop!

vancouver convention center in the early evening as seen from canada place

Vancouver Convention Center and Coal Harbour (Purchase)

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The Vancouver Convention Centre (formerly the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre) opened in 2009. I have often referred to Canada Place as the Trade and Convention Center but after 2009 it is also known as the Vancouver Convention Centre East Building. During the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics the East Building was the press building for the games. A wide variety of events and conferences are held at the main building – when I was there last week the Vancouver Ted Talks were about to start.

As I walked along the seawall at Coal Harbour I took note of some other angles that looked interesting. You’ll see more photographs from this area soon, but I wanted to concentrate on the main Convention Centre for this particular post. The second photograph here was made from the side of Canada Place, which offers good views in most directions and is a great vantage point to view the newer building.

For more photos of Vancouver buildings visit my Cities and Buildings Gallery.

My Top 10 Photos of 2016

December 15, 2016December 12, 2016

Once again it is time to post my 10 favourite photographs from the past year. I do this yearly as it is a worthwhile exercise, and to take part in Jim Goldstein’s annual Your Best Photos project. His collection of these posts is a great place to view photographs and find some new photographers to follow.

I hope you enjoy my selections here and am curious to hear if you have a favourite. If you click on each photograph you’ll be taken to my Image Archive. Many of these photographs have corresponding blog posts that I’ve linked to underneath the thumbnails here. These aren’t in any specific order, but I did place the photograph “Rainbow over Hatzic Lake” at the beginning as I think this is the first time I’ve photographed a rainbow (successfully at least) outside of my backyard. I was also shielding the camera from a rainstorm with my body, so the photo deserves extra points for that. 😉

Here are my top 10 photos of 2016:

Rainbow over Hatzic Lake
(Mission, British Columbia)
Blog post: Rainbow over Hatzic Lake

Sailboat in the Salish Sea
(Lighthouse Park, West Vancouver, British Columbia)
Blog post: Sunset at Juniper Point in Lighthouse Park

View of Downtown Vancouver from North Van

June 30, 2019October 15, 2016

Downtown Vancouver’s buildings at sunset as photographed from the Burrard Dry Dock Pier (near Londsdale Quay) in North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada.

downtown vancouver at sunset photographed from North Vancouver

Sunset Behind Downtown Vancouver (Purchase)

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While I consider myself a landscape and nature photographer I do enjoy photographing almost anything – including cityscapes. I have photographed several panoramas of downtown Vancouver in the past, though most of these have been from various vantage points in Stanley Park and some from Kits Beach. I have been wanting to do the same from North Vancouver’s perspective and had the opportunity to do so a few weeks ago.

I had spent the day photographing around North Vancouver in areas such as Maple Flats, Cates Park, and Deep Cove. When the light was running out at Deep Cove I determined that this would be a good chance to shoot the sunset and downtown Vancouver from somewhere in North Van. I had previously tried this at the dog park near the automall, but there always seems to be a large amount of barges and boats blocking the view from there. I’d heard that near Londsdale Quay would be a better spot, so I headed there from Deep Cove. There has been a lot of changes in that area since I was last there, so I had to find my way to various viewpoints in new ways. I wound up on the Burrard Dry Dock Pier (just east of Londsdale Quay) which offers a great view of downtown Vancouver. I was able to make some good photographs here including the one above. While I had to dodge the Seabus and a few other boats moving through the foreground (and their wakes) this turned out to be a great location to view Vancouver.

For more photographs of downtown Vancouver visit my Cities and Buildings Gallery.

Sunset at Kitsilano Beach Park in Vancouver

May 27, 2018June 18, 2016

Kitsilano Beach Park and buildings in the West End and downtown Vancouver at sunset. Photographed from Kitsilano Beach Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

kits beach sunset panorama vancouver city

Sunset at Kisilano Beach Park in the City of Vancouver (Purchase)

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Earlier I shared some blue hour photos of similar scenes of Kitsilano Beach Park, Vancouver’s West End, and English Bay that I made back in March. The two photographs here were made about 20 minutes earlier when there were some sunset colours in the sky, and even a hint of Earth’s shadow (aka the Belt of Venus – top, right). This is the kind of sunset photograph I enjoy – the light from sunset in the sky, on the mountains and the buildings to the east. I was in Vancouver on this day due to the good weather and that we had just had some fresh snow on the Northshore Mountains – conditions that had eluded me the previous winter. The top photograph here includes Mount Seymour with some fresh snow above the buildings of the West End of Vancouver city. I think the two make a good combination.

Kitsilano Beach and the Boathouse Restaurant at Sunset (Purchase)

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The second photograph here shows the Boathouse Restaurant at Kitsilano Beach Park during the night’s sunset. It had not yet become chilly at this point in the evening, so there were still quite a few tourists and locals on the beach. On a typical summer day (I shot this in March) I doubt you’d be able to see any sand around the beach goers from this vantage point – Kits is a rather popular beach during the summer.

For more photographs of Cities and Buildings (mostly Vancouver) visit my Cities & Buildings Gallery.