The parking lots were full to overflowing in every direction. Live music streamed from the rooftop of the Newport Market. Excited kids jumped for joy on a covered trampoline set up in the street. On the sidewalk, tired pooches that were stretched out to cool their paws in the heat of the afternoon were petted and fussed over by passersby. Patrons sat on outdoor patios, tucking into sandwiches, gelato, pizza and an assortment of other delights full of restorative powers. Youngsters applied coloured chalk with artistic abandon to the street and sidewalk. In the parlance of the '60s, this was "a happening." Welcome to Cleveland Avenue unplugged, converted to a pedestrian-only zone on a sun-filled Saturday in August.
Just up the street, the Farmers' Market was swarming with locals and visitors "connecting with the people who make it, bake it and grow it," as the market's website puts it. And just up the highway, between Shannon Falls and the Stawamus Chief, professional trail builders for the Sea to Sky Gondola were busy cutting hiking trails, including a two-kilometre-long version rising from the base camp to the gondola summit area. The opening for the whole operation is slated for sometime next spring and the buzz is building.
Across town, just a week after the annual Squamish Days Loggers Sports event thrilled sellout crowds, the Squamish Valley Music Festival was in full swing at the same location. With more than 17,000 revellers in attendance, the Vancouver Sun referred to the gathering, now in its fourth year, as "a three-day outdoor party with acclaimed international acts and breathtaking mountain views that has quickly become one of the most popular music festivals in Canada."
Erik Hoffman, the Live Nation vice-president who booked the fest, put it this way: "I have been to most of the big festivals in the world, and there are a lot of festivals in big parks, but you're not surrounded by mountains in an unbelievable setting." And if everything goes according to plan, 35,000 festival goers will flood into the Shining Valley next year.
Of course, given the disruption to this otherwise "sleepy mountainside town," as it was referred to by one media outlet, there are still pockets of resistance to the new kids on the block. But the tide may be shifting. Fifty-seven per cent of the 125 readers who responded to an online survey conducted by The Chief liked various aspects of the festival, leaving only a minority aching for "the whole loud thing" to be over. All in all, if we look at the bigger picture, is there any town across the country that has more upside in the summer? Not likely.
