Vancouver DeTours

12/10/2024

A bit of in the wild here in London. You may recognize his work from a couple of our Mt. Pleasant tours.

03/10/2024

Turns out Pete had a guest on his tour yesterday that had a small world connection. The guest went to high school in New York with Pete’s Uncle, which is the same high school as Pete’s Mom.

Also the guests brother was in a high school band with Pete’s uncle.

Did you get all of that? From Long Island to Vancouver. It pays to talk to people, you never know if there’s a connection.

04/09/2024

Went for a bike ride in East Van yesterday and started taking photos of all the trucks.

19/08/2024

2024 tours are done! Thanks to everyone who came out to walk with us on our three different Mt. pleasant routes. We will still be doing Sunday free tours at 11am through September if you want to see more.

Here are a few random shots of amazing art from our three different tours.

13/08/2024

may be done for the season, but we’re not. Festival walking tours happening through August 18th, covering three different Mt. Pleasant routes. Space is limited, booking link in bio.

Art by

12/08/2024

Hope you all had a chance to stop by and sample some beers in cool containers from . 🍻

09/08/2024

Our new favourite.

We have lots of favourites.

Come see it on our Mt. Pleasant North tour.

Art by

08/08/2024

Here’s Pete and Ali working the special events tours for Abcellera. Future hip-hop album cover?

06/08/2024

It’s week and we are proud to be the official walking tour partners once again. This year we are offering three different routes in Mt. Pleasant:

The North Route: this combines elements of last years Hidden Gems route, some new stuff, and parts of various tours we have run over the years.

The Central Route: this is essentially our Foundations route that we have run every year, with a focus on 7.5 Alley, Main Alley, and some fun deviations.

The South Route: based around parts of our 2020 and 2022 Hidden Gems routes, along with pieces that we have never shown before.

Book your spot as they’re filling up and space is limited! Link in bio.

Art by

04/08/2024

Much respect to .lines.jam for pulling this off again. They had to turn to crowd funding to even ensure that this event happened again. Great work, Vancouver needs more of this. 👊🏻

24/07/2024

Our street art and mural tour of the West End happens again this Saturday and we have a few spaces left. These tours are free to join courtesy of , but please remember to reserve a spot as walk-ups may be turned away if the tour is full.

We’ll show you plenty of amazing works, some hidden in plain sight. Like this one from , with the assist to .

22/07/2024

Sometimes we take the stairs.

17/07/2024

We visited the a couple weeks ago in Esquimalt, and we gotta say, very impressive. Great to see so many talented graffiti artists in one awesome space. Keep up the good work.

12/07/2024

Our West End tours are booking up fast but we do have some spots left for tomorrow and a couple left for next Saturday. Book your spot with the link in the bio.

These tours are 100% courtesy of . Learn about the laneway mural project and other public art around the neighborhood.

Art by .b.alexis

10/07/2024

We are getting ready for the 2024 edition of , and for the first time ever we are doing three different Mt. Pleasant routes. This shot is from an alley on our South route, perhaps you know it, perhaps you don’t. Either way you should come walk with us and see and learn a whole bunch more.

Festival tours run August 8th to 18th. Booking link in bio.

Art by , and

28/09/2023

This weekend is your last chance in 2023 to join our public mural tours with bearded wunderkind Peter Edwards:

Book here: https://www.vancouverdetours.ca/publictours-1

Saturday 11a.m: Strathcona

Sunday 11a.m: Mt Pleasant

Private tours are available year round.

22/08/2023

You’re invited to another exciting tour with our friends ! On this tour, we will be looking at heritage and historic buildings in the era of megaprojects. Increasingly, proposals that involve heritage buildings subsume them under much larger additions. The generally accepted idea by heritage professionals is that the heritage asset/building takes main consideration with the building addition being subordinate to it. With some recent local proposals, this may not seem to be the case. We go through several large projects involving historic buildings around the downtown area and discuss some of the reasons that have been given for the scope. We look at the historic context of these buildings and also discuss in easily understandable terms, some of the standards and guidelines that heritage professionals apply to historic sites. We also discuss the more well-known method of density transfer that has been used as a way to manage change to historic buildings.
The tour will be led by Heritage Vancouver board member Alasdair Butcher. Tickets are by donation and available here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-era-of-heritage-and-megaprojects-tickets-689728345047?aff=oddtdtcreator

We look forward to walking with you!

10/08/2023

had a blast providing guided tours for AbCellera’s staff social event. They even made signs for and with our ‘bios’. But then what would you expect from a ‘bio-tech’ company…👀

06/06/2023

founder had a fantastic time reading the urban landscape and challenging dominant stories of place with this group of Geography professors from around BC last week

02/05/2023

Public tours of Gastown and Downtown are back this week! Come for a walk and talk on Wednesday and Saturday.

Our Free Public tours are an engaging and accessible way to explore Vancouver. The Downtown and Waterfront Tour is a good introduction to Vancouver's architecture and planning. Gastown explores the complex history and contemporary processes of this fascinating neighbourhood. And the Mt Pleasant Mura

12/04/2023

Our friends at the HHeritage Vancouver Societyare having a fundraiser this Saturday. HVS does fantastic work in recognizing the diversity of ways we attribute meaning to place. There will be speakers, food, beer, and jazz -come show some support!

This event is all about communities, and we invite all of you to be there with us. All generated funds go to our community programming.

18/11/2022

Vancouver DeTours founder Doc Butch teamed up with tour guide extraordinaire Jessica O'Neill to make a video about some of Vancouver's strangest places.

Jess has a youtube channel that explores weird stuff in museums and beyond - like, share, and subscribe if that's your kind of 'detour'😉

Like this video? Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Leave a comment and tell me about your favourite place or story in Vancouver. You know I want ...

06/09/2022

This Sunday (Sept 11), DeTours founder Alasdair 'Doc Butch' Butcher will be leading a tour for the Heritage Vancouver Society in Gastown. Topics will include:

Is 'heritage' old buildings or memories and meanings in place?

What is the future for aging SRO hotels and their residents in the neighbourhood?

What is the relationship between architectural revival and social displacement?

What's the deal with statues?

Limited, by-donation tickets left below

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/heritage-vancouver-tour-recent-heritage-matters-and-gastown-tickets-409065013467

Alasdair Butcher leads a tour around Gastown to explore recent heritage matters

18/07/2022

DeTours return as the official tour partner for the 2022 Vancouver Mural Festival, with a brand new tour in Strathcona/East Van as well as reworked routes and content on our two Mt Pleasant Tours. This year we are also excited work alongside Curated Tastes, who will be offering mural tours in 5 new neighbourhoods. Tours presented by Herschel Supply Co.

For schedule and bookings go to:
https://vanmuralfest.ca/mural-tours

For our other tour offerings check out:
https://www.vancouverdetours.ca/

28/06/2022

FREE Public Tours are back Wednesday - Sundays at 10a.m. Come and join our 'People's History' approach to learning about the city!

https://www.vancouverdetours.ca/publictours