Stir Coffee House, Westham Island Bridge and Reifel Bird Sanctuary are all paid tribute to in a new book co-authored by Ladner’s Dave Doroghy.
111 Places in Vancouver That You Must Not Miss by Doroghy and Graeme Menzies, released this summer, is a new guide book for locals and experienced travelers alike that reveals the fascinating, unusual and little-known places and stories in and around Vancouver.
Doroghy, a Vancouver native who now lives on a houseboat off River Road, is an international sports marketing consultant who met Menzies, a director of marketing communications at UBC, while they were working for the Vancouver Olympic Committee in 2010.
“We were happy to find an opportunity to work together again,” said Doroghy. “We brought that Olympic spirit to this project and even a bit of competition, mainly around who could find the coolest places.”
111 Places in Vancouver That You Must Not Miss is a series of guide books released by Emons Publishing in Cologne, Germany and New York, NY.
“I describe us both as a duo of frustrated writers who love writing and are looking to get published,” said Doroghy. “Graeme used to date the sister of the editor of this series and we were asked if we wanted to take this project on. It took us a year to put this together. The series is available around the world with distribution around the globe. We are in our second distribution and it is selling really well.
“It’s an interesting concept by way they have local authors writing about the interesting places in their cities.”
Menzies describes the project as a “great adventure.”
“We discovered places we’ve never even heard of before, and we learned new stories about the places we’ve passed by thousands of times,” he said. “We hope our fellow Vancouverites are ready to rediscover our city like we’ve done. Our book shares all the secrets we learned along the way.”
Doroghy said it was great to be able to include some special places here in Delta.
“I actually do all my writing at Stir. I hang out in the corner and as I sit there people ask me what I’m working on and people give me tips,” he said. “Stir has such a great vibe. The bridge has such a great history and the bird sanctuary, I think, is one of the best in Canada, so these are all legit places that people need to check out and that many here in the Lower Mainland have no idea exist.”
The authors held a signing event at Stir Coffee House in late October and have another this Saturday, Nov. 23, at Black Bond Books in Ladner from noon to 3 p.m.
“Holly Morgan is great. She likes the fact that I’m a local author and a local angle,” said Doroghy. “It’s really cool to think that people are buying it all over the world and finding all about these quirky stories here in Ladner.
