When I was in high school, North Vancouver did not seem to be a place to celebrate for its architecture. I saw most of it as either new and overpriced, or rundown and overpriced. Though this understanding of the architectural landscape lacked nuance, it was not unfounded. I went to the same decrepit high school that my dad went to thirty years before, and our condo was in the area that the Hummer-driving vice principal of my high school called "the new Yaletown". It had floor-to-ceiling windows and bamboo hardwood floors that scuffed up far easier than the price implied they should. Its features seemed to be heartless variations on the West Coast style - the themes and colours fit but the materials did not. Despite the natural beauty that overwhelms North Vancouver, it seemed authentic to my high school eyes.

- An excerpt from the essay Variations On A Theme written by Hannah Bellamy from Sad Magazine issue 16/17