How many cherry trees are there in Vancouver? Thirty-six thousand, to be exact, and it was the beauty of their multitude of spring blossoms that prompted a Vancouver woman to create a festival in their honour.
Linda Poole initiated the first Cherry Blossom Festival last year, complete with a haiku contest, plein-air painting classes and various tree talks and walks. For this year's festival, which runs from March 22 to mid-April, organizers have added a cherry jam, trolley tours, and a cherry blossom photo contest.
"The whole premise of the festival is that the cherry tree inspires new poetry, new art and new music," says Poole. "This festival is inspiring the artist in us all."
The haiku contest, which is the heart of the festival, says Poole, brought in 1,130 new poems from 30 countries. The best Canadian haiku went like this: street hockey/young boys shoot cherry petals/into the net. On April 1, members of the Pacifi-cana Haiku group will lead a haiku walk through Queen Elizabeth Park in honour of the cherry blossoms.
Cherry trees were not so common in Vancouver until the 1930s when the mayors of Kobe and Yokohama presented the Park Board with 500 Japanese cherry trees. The trees were planted at the Japanese Cenotaph in Stanley Park to honour Japanese Canadians who served in WW1.
In the following few decades, the Park Board began to replace some of the large chestnut, elm and maple trees—the roots of which were damaging sewer pipes and sidewalks—with their smaller hawthorn, plum and flowering cherry counterparts. Poole says Vancouver has one very rare tree, a Tibetan cherry, on King Edward and Valley.
The cherry jam kicked off the festival last Thursday under the canopy of blossoms by the Burrard Skytrain Station. The lunchtime concert featured a range of acts, including dueling drums with Chibi and Takori Taiko, and the Calgary Fiddlers who played—you guessed it—the Cherry Blossom Special.
There were many booths at the jam, including one featuring Japanese culture and products set up by the Japanese consulate. Jamie Coles and his girlfriend waited in a lineup to sample some Japanese tea, which didn't disappoint. Coles says he had fun trying out his high school Japanese on the tea servers, who wore elegant traditional Japanese costumes.
Poole says that for the 12 years she lived abroad while her husband was in the Foreign Service, she really missed the cherry blossoms. And although they visited Canada often, it was never in spring when the trees were in bloom. So when they moved back to Canada and she first laid her eyes on the "astonishing sight" of the blossoms, she had the idea that they should be celebrated in all their glory.
While cherry blossom festivals are a way of life in Japan, Poole says that the many other countries that hold such festivals "don't get into the educational side of it" the way the Vancouver one does. There are many experts on the festival team, such as Douglas Justice of the UBC Botanical Garden and arborists and botanists from the city, who provide information about the different cultivars.
There will be two "tree talks and walks" coming up in April, and plein-air blossom painting classes will be held for five consecutive Saturdays on location under various canopies of blossoms around city parks and neighbourhoods. The photo contest, which closes on April 16, offers a trip for two to Japan as first prize.
"It's a feel-good festival and that's why people love it," says Poole. "We're so fortunate here in Vancouver, so I say let's boast about it, let's tell the world. Let's celebrate what's beautiful in Vancouver."
To view a Best of the Blossoms map, visit http://www.vancouvercherryblossomfestival.com/vcbf/map
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