The signs leading from the airport into Vancouver boast IT'S OUR YEAR! C'EST NOTRE ANNEE! And so it is, in English, French and just about every other language of the globe. Surrounded on one side by snowcapped mountains, on the other by chill Pacific waters, the San Francisco of Canada, as it is often called, now has an additional adornment, a world's fair. Open since the beginning of the month, Expo 86 is already a success by the most firmly pedestrian standard: crowds are standing in line to love it.
Vancouver is one of the most serene big cities in North America, as well as one of the most polite. Its climate, much like Seattle's, is cool and moist and is as hospitable to tourists as it is to flowers, the regiments of tulips and carpets of pansies that are seen everywhere. The fair's original purpose was to mark the centennial of the opening of the Canadian transcontinental railway. A more practical goal was to boost the ailing economy of British Columbia. But now it is benefiting from a larger circumstance. In a world frightened by terrorism, this international gathering stretched out along the curving waterfront looks as if it will be the summer's Mecca for Americans who want to leave the U.S., taste a variety of foreign cultures and return without undue anxiety.
There is, in fact, something for everybody at Expo, which is already being compared with the last Canadian fair, Montreal's popular Expo 67. Some 54 countries, nine Canadian provinces and territories, three American states (Washington, Oregon and California) and a dozen or more major companies have set up pavilions that emphasize the theme of the fair: transportation and communication.
In three days a fast-walking visitor can hop across continents by taking a boat down the Yangtze River, touching an exact model of the Soviet spaceship that ventured through Halley's comet and seeing John Lennon's flower-decorated Rolls-Royce. One of the chief delights of most visitors seems to be filling Expo passports with the stamps of each country. Children, adults, everyone wants a stamp. When the emblem of the Ivory Coast failed to arrive during the first week, a slim young woman in a long black-and-white dress made do by patiently writing in each book: "Cote d'Ivoire Pavillon." Who knows? That may be the fair's most treasured souvenir.
The best place to start sightseeing is at Canada's own pavilion, which is across town, half a mile or so from the rest of Expo. Set on a giant pier, it is topped by five soaring fiber-glass sails and looks a little like an 18th century man-of-war striding into the wind. Get into line--the first, alas, of many at Expo--for two informative and blissfully short movies about the host ; country. Next comes a never failing crowd pleaser, a 3-D extravaganza that among other things, sends a train roaring out into the audience. Then something even more inventive, Director Emil Radok's multi-imaged story of the evolution of communication, ingeniously told on nine interconnected screens.