Exploring Southwestern British Columbia Without a Car
Featured in kudos & kvetches:The Vancouver Carier June 01,2001
Good book, bad timing You’ve got to love Brian Grover. The local writer, who’s been car-free for years and proud of it, noticed that outdoor and recreation guide books in B.C. assumed that everyone has a car, and that you will take your vehicle with you to the wilderness. But not Grover, who preaches what he practices in his recently published B.C. Car Free: Exploring Southwestern British Columbia Without A Car. It’s chock full of tips and maps to help you find your way sans polluting vehicle to outdoor locations in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast, Stein Valley and Manning Park. Aside from a couple of typographical errors we noticed on our first skim through (it’s “tendency,” not “tendancy”) it looks like a good book, with Grover being conscious at every turn that his readers will not have the benefit of an urban assault vehicle. He covers public transportation, maps, accommodation and travelling either on foot or by bike. The only problem with the book, and this is not Grover’s fault, is the timing. With the Lower Mainland’s bus system out, most of us car-less types are as stuck in our little locale as flies on flypaper. So we think this is another reason to resolve the bus strike (as if we need another): we want to try out Grover’s neat book. Check out www.car-free.ca for updates to his tome.
