English Bay (Vancouver)
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English Bay is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, west of the downtown peninsula, which separates the bay from Burrard Inlet connecting to the northeast, and False Creek to the southeast. English Bay Beach, near the city's West End residential neighbourhood, is the most popular sunbathing, swimming, and sunset-watching beach in the downtown Vancouver area. Other downtown beaches facing English Bay include Sunset Beach, Second Beach, and Third Beach. South of the bay lie Kitsilano Beach, Jericho Beach, the Spanish Banks beaches, and Locarno Beach.
The Vancouver Seawall runs all the way around English Bay from Stanley Park in the northeast, around False Creek, and down to Wreck Beach on the Georgia Strait in the southwest. This is a favourite destination for walkers, runners, bicyclists, and roller-bladers. (Note: the Seawall is one-way for cyclists and roller-bladers, running counter-clockwise from just east of Lions Gate Bridge to Third Beach.)
English Bay is host to a number of cultural events. The HSBC Celebration of Light is a world famous fireworks competition that is held for two weeks every summer (usually the last week in July and first week in August). It is the largest off-shore fireworks display in the world. Each winter it is the host of Vancouvers' annual Polar Bear Swim and each summer the Vancouver Pride Parade and Festival is held on the downtown banks of English Bay.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, English Bay was home to Vancouver's first official lifeguard, the legendary Joe Fortes, who taught hundreds of the city's early residents how to swim, and patrolled the beach from his cabin on its shore. Today, the waters of the bay are often dotted with hundreds of small pleasure boats, as well as huge freighters waiting at anchor to load cargoes at Vancouver's port.
