Population (2006): 587,891 (city); 2,180,737 (region) Climate: Average Average
Temperature (Low/High) (F) Precipitation
Jan 32/41 5.7 in. March 36/49 4.0 in May 46/62 2.2 in July 71/55 1.2 in. Sept 50/65 2.3 in. Nov 37/48 6.1 in.
and Vancouver soon became the third largest city in Canada. In 1986, it hosted Expo 86, a highly successful World’s Fair, and in 2010 it will host the Winter Olympics. Today, Vancouver is a thriving city that exudes confidence in its eco- nomic strength and multicultural character.
Major Districts
The Downtown East Side is the oldest sec- tion of Vancouver, now notorious for its slums and considered one of the worst urban areas in Canada. In 2003, as a reaction to its having the highest rates of HIV in the western world, a program was established to provide drug addicts with needles, access to clinics, and a safe site to inject drugs. The Downtown Eastside also includes tourist areas like Chinatown and Gastown, site of the original Vancouver settle- ment (which was named after “Gassy Jack” Deighton, saloonkeeper and long-winded teller of stories).
Downtown Vancouver is a large area of busi- nesses and office towers. Granville Street is the commercial hub of the city, while Howe Street is the center of the business district. East Vancouver, a lower middle class area east of the downtown core, is a multicultural area where the city’s Chi- nese, Greek, and Italian communities are centered. South Vancouver is a middle class area south of the downtown core, home to large populations of Chinese and Indians.
Stanley Park, a thousand-acre peninsula, is
the largest city-owned park in Canada. Among its numerous attractions are: a memorial to Japanese nisei immigrants and First World War veterans, Lumberman’s Arch (a memorial to log- gers built on the site of the deserted Squamish village of Whoi Whoi), the burial site of poet Pauline Johnston, and memorials to various sunken ships. The Vancouver aquarium, Cana- da’s largest and the site of a top research facility studying Pacific coast marine mammals, is also located here.
Other Vancouver neighborhoods include:
False Creek: the site of Expo 86, now densely
packed with condominiums
Kitsilano: an upscale neighborhood and market
area that’s home to Vancouver’s best beaches.
Point Grey: the far southwest corner of Vancou-
ver is home to the University of British Columbia and the infamous Wreck Beach (an area set aside for nudists).
Yaletown: A recently redeveloped area between
the downtown area and False Creek, this is a trendy yuppie neighborhood that’s home to entertainment businesses and nascent software companies.
Outlying areas include North Vancouver, Whistler (where the 2010 Olympics will be held), New Westminster and the Fraser Valley to the east, and Richmond (and Vancouver airport) to the south.
Landmarks
Popular attractions in Vancouver include: the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (which has one of the largest col- lections of Pacific Northwest First Nations art in the world); the Vancouver Art Gallery (a former courthouse in the middle of downtown, right next to the equally historic Hotel Vancouver); the Van- couver Planetarium (with its famous crab statue); and the Pacific Science Center (with a dome built for Expo 86).
Festivals
The Polar Bear Swim (January 1) is just the thing for anyone who loves diving into freezing cold water and staying there awhile. The Dragon Boat Race (late June) is a traditional Chinese event. The Nanaimo Bathtub Race (July) involves boats built out of or designed around bathtubs, making for an interesting mix of sport and spec- tacle. The Pacific National Exhibition is a 17-day fair held in August that features all sorts of events and entertainment.
Sports Teams
Vancouver’s active sports scene focuses on the Canucks (NHL), the Lions (CFL), the Giants (WHL), the Canadians (single A baseball), and the
Whitecaps (US Soccer League 1st Division).
Major Newspapers
Besides the Vancouver Province (a tabloid) and the Vancouver Sun (a standard paper), the city also has several Chinese-language daily papers.
Local Superheroes
Vancouver has had a lot of heroes in its history. The most famous is SUNDER, a much- respected UNTIL-associated superhero team active between 1982 and 1992. Its team leader was a telepathic detective named Shamus; other mem- bers included Avenger (an immortal vigilante with regenerative powers), Thundrax (a conscientious brick who could switch from a mortal to immor- tal form, he later joined StarForce, then retired to become a Member of Parliament), Cryo (a cold projecting mutant), Flux (a scientist in a magnetic battlesuit), Solar Sentinel (an astronaut mutated by exposure to alien forces). Most of them have retired from heroing altogether; a few still respond to emergencies when appropriate.
Other Vancouver heroes include Raven-
speaker (see Chapter Four); the Vanguard (a
superhero team from 2002-2006, the subject of the most tragic incident involving superheroes in Canadian history; see page 28); and Lion Khalsa
Singh. The latter is a vigilante with minor invisibil-
ity powers whose parents were killed in the 1985 terrorist bombing of Air India Flight 182; he was raised by his grandparents, who trained him to avenge their deaths. Active since 2005 and dressed in the garb of a traditional Sikh warrior, he wields the kirpan (Sikh dagger) with extraordinary skill. Though he initially fought crime only in the local Indo-Canadian community, he now battles street crime throughout the lower mainland.
Crime
Vancouver is one of Canada’s most crimi- nally active cities. The adjacent Fraser Valley is the hotbed of Canada’s marijuana industry. Some Indo-Canadian criminals have styled themselves after American gangsters, and drive-by shootings are not unheard of. As in other parts of Canada, biker gangs are active participants in the criminal underworld.
WINDSOR
The southernmost city in Canada (it’s actually south of some parts of the United States), Wind- sor is the southern anchor of the Quebec City- Windsor corridor in which so much of Canada’s population resides. It’s across the Detroit River from Detroit (or, in the Champions Universe, Mil- lennium City); during the Battle of Detroit, some of the destruction spilled over into Windsor. That now-rebuilt section of the city is known as Memo- rial City, though it’s really part of overall Windsor.
History
Windsor was originally settled by the French, and still retains some French influences. It became a British settlement after the American Revolu- tion. After the Grand Trunk railway connection was completed in 1858 it grew rapidly.
In 1992, the devastation of the battle between Dr. Destroyer and numerous heroes that destroyed Detroit also lapped over the border into Windsor. The Ambassador Bridge was all but destroyed, and the Windsor-Detroit tunnel collapsed. The damage wasn’t nearly as extensive as the devasta- tion in Detroit, but still led to extensive rebuilding. Today Windsor is one of Canada’s most modern cities, a center of industry in the traditional auto- mobile industry, but also in plastics and the bur- geoning aerospace industry.
Major Districts
Modern Windsor has most been shaped by the Battle of Detroit and the rebuilding that fol- lowed it. The area east of Memorial Park (see below) and north of Tecumseh Road West to Howard Avenue is designated as Memorial City. This includes the University of Windsor, which was devastated in the 1992 attack but later rebuilt. Memorial City shares many of the same architec- tural and technological advancements as Millen- nium City, though it lacks others (such as comput- erized traffic monitoring).
The parcel of land north of LaSalle extend- ing to Huron Church Road and the Ambassa- dor Bridge has been designated Memorial Park — a large park that commemorates the Battle of Detroit. On the west side of the Ambassador Bridge, a statue of Celestar reaches across to a large statue of Vanguard on the other side of the river. An unidentified telepath who lost her parents in the tragedy took offense at the “trivi- alization” of the disaster and used her powers so that anyone who touched either statue hears the screams and moans of the Battle’s victims. Celestar later said that was a far more fitting memorial than “some stupid statue.”
Along the waterfront, east of Memorial City is a less heralded reconstructed area: Memorial Casino and a cluster of vice shops. Locals call it “the Den,” a little Las Vegas on the border. Its glamorous façade hides the worst crime in the city, but the province makes too much money from the casino to look at what’s going on. The Memorial City VIPER Nest, currently led by Naja Ivankov (a Russian mobster who’s a physical powerhouse), is one of the most influential in Canada and a thorn in Celestar’s side.
Of course, many districts of Windsor predate the disaster and were left relatively intact during the Battle. Lasalle is a heavily Francophone area, and Lakeshore is one of the largest enclaves of French-speakers in Ontario. Walkerville is the center of the distillery trade; in the East End Ford and GM have construction plants.
Landmarks
Some of Windsor’s prominent features include: Memorial Park (founded to preserve the memories of those who died during the Battle of Destroit); the Hiram Walker & Sons Distillery; the Daimler-Chrysler assembly plant; the Duff-Baby House (built in 1798 and origi- nally used as a fur-trading post); the Ambas- sador Bridge (the busiest border crossing in Canada; in the Champions Universe, a second span was added when the bridge was rebuilt in 1994); and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
Of greatest interest to herophiles is Celestar’s headquarters, an enormous tower carved out of a single piece of space quartz (much like the Star- Force headquarters being built in Toronto, but smaller and more beautiful). It sits on an artificial hill in Memorial Park, overlooking the river.