The charming and growing waterfront community, surrounded by mountains, forests and ocean, is just a 20-minute drive from Vancouver.

Location: Deep Cove is located on the North Shore of Vancouver.

• The Deep Cove and Area Heritage Association archives a collection of historical photographs, manuscripts, documents, maps, taped interviews with pioneers, and other artifacts from the Deep Cove and Dollarton area of North Vancouver. Located in the Deep Cove Cultural Centre, the association is run by dedicated volunteers and is open to the public on Saturday afternoons from noon to 4 pm.

• Learn more about the history of Mount Seymour and Deep Cove on a Walking Tour of the seaside community organized by the Deep Cove and Area Heritage Association.

• The Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge and Ecology Centre are the focal points of the 617 acres of pristine coastal temperate rain forest of Lynn Canyon Park. The suspension bridge is half as wide as its more famous counterpart, it's a few metres higher and, best of all, it's free! Visitors can cast cautious glances at the water 150 feet (50 m) below, where it turns from placid emerald green to whipped-up whitewater in an instant. Despite the sturdy steel cables there's always a slight feeling of dread, an uncertainty as to whether the footings will hold. This crossing is not for the timid, as the bridge does tend to bounce and sway.

• The last remaining farm on Vancouver's North Shore, Maplewood Farm was once a thriving dairy, delivering fresh milk and cream to customers from Deep Cove to Lonsdale. Opened to the public in 1975, and now home to over 200 domestic animals and birds, Maplewood Farm strives to provide a recollection of the rural heritage of this pastoral 5-acre setting on Seymour River Place - a unique experience for adults and children alike. Farm highlights include sheep shearing in May, the Farm Fair in September, the Pumpkin Event in October, and Country Christmas in December.

• The Maplewood Conservation Area on Dollarton Highway in North Vancouver, a prime viewing site for wildlife and birds, is the last undeveloped waterfront wetland on the north shore of Burrard Inlet.

• The 22-hectare Cates Park offers a 6-km shoreline hiking trail through forests of Douglas-fir and maple, a boat launch for anglers, kayakers and boaters, and great views of Indian Arm and Burrard Inlet. Facilities include tennis courts, playgrounds, and a day-use picnic area.

• Golf: Surrounded by mountains, or the surf of the Pacific Ocean, there can be no better place to play a round of golf than on one of the North Shore's courses. Murdo Fraizer Par 3 Golf Course is a 9-hole public golf course located in a park setting just minutes from Downtown Vancouver. Seymour Golf & Country Club is a semi-private club located in North Vancouver offering a meticulously groomed golf course that intertwines through the towering old-growth cedar and fir trees at the base of Mount Seymour. Seymour is a championship golf course well known for its undulating terrain, tree lined fairways, small greens and exceptional conditioning. It's a players course, with a deceptive level of difficulty (18 holes, Par 72, 6,389 yards). Northlands Golf Course in neighbouring Deep Cove is sculpted from a 100-year-old forest at the foot of Mt. Seymour, providing challenging golf, scenic beauty, and the peace and quiet of wilderness. A mountain stream, huge granite outcroppings bursting through lush green fairways, and mountain peaks as a back drop combine to make Northlands a memorable golf experience (18 holes, 6,504 yards). West Vancouver offers the Ambleside Par 3 Golf Course and Gleneagles Golf Course, and 20 minutes away on the rugged coast of Howe Sound is the spectacular Furry Creek Golf and Country Club. Golf Vacations in British Columbia.

• Downhill skiers and snowboarders have their pick of Cypress Mountain (25 groomed runs, 1,750 feet/537 m vertical, 3 chairlifts) in West Vancouver’s Cypress Provincial Park and Grouse Mountain and Mount Seymour in North Vancouver. Intermediate and advanced skiers and snowboarders gravitate to Cypress and Grouse, while Seymour has the distinction of being the place where three-quarters of Lower Mainlanders learn to ski, and it’s got 5,000 pairs of rental skis (and snowboards) to prove it. Skiing and Winter Recreation on the North Shore.

• By far the longest hiking route on the North Shore is the almost 30-mile (48-km) Baden-Powell Trail, the thread that knits the North Shore together into one continuous strand. The trail runs between its western terminus at West Vancouver's Horseshoe Bay and Deep Cove on North Vancouver's eastern perimeter. Along the way, it climbs and descends a well-trodden route that passes through both Cypress and Mount Seymour Provincial Parks. You can devote days to discovering it bit by bit, or push yourself to the limit in a day. The varied terrain of the Vancouver, Coast and Mountains region of BC accommodates every outdoor recreation known to man.

• Deep Cove is one of two jumping-off points for exploring Indian Arm by canoe or kayak, a steep-sided, 18-mile (30-km) fjord that branches north from Burrard Inlet just east of the Second Narrows Bridge. You can explore the south end of Indian Arm, including the islands that comprise Indian Arm Provincial Marine Park, in the course of a day, or set out on an extended two- to four-day circumnavigation of the coastal inlet. The best time to paddle here is between April and October. During monsoon season, Indian Arm, and the North Shore generally, often receives twice as much rain as nearby Vancouver. That's a lot!

• Fishing: As there are few places to shore-cast on the North Shore, other than the lower reaches of the Capilano River in Capilano River Regional Park, anglers would do well to head to one of the marinas at the boat-launch ramp at Cates Park, the north end of Panorama in Deep Cove, or Mosquito Creek at the south foot of Forbes Avenue in Lower Lonsdale. For more fishing in British Columbia.

• Although the North Shore has increasingly become identified with mountain biking, road cycling has enjoyed a longer, though less lustrous, appeal. Alex Steida, the first Canadian cyclist to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, trained on the North Shore in the 1980s. A few smooth routes to roll your skinny tires on are the paved Seymour Mainline, which runs for 8.7 miles (14 km) through the Seymour Demonstration Forest, an easy ride to the walls of the Seymour Dam, with the exception of one moderately steep hill at its midpoint. Along the way you'll have one of the best views of Mount Seymour's deceptively gentle-looking peaks. Both the 5-mile (8-km) Cypress Parkway in West Vancouver and the 7.4-mile (12-km) Mount Seymour Road in North Vancouver have wide paved shoulders for those cyclists who enjoy the challenge of a lengthy ascent. Cypress Parkway climbs through four switchbacks from the Upper Levels Highway (Hwy 1) to the parking lot at the foot of Cypress Bowl's downhill ski runs. Hard-core cyclists lash skis and poles to their frames in winter when making their way here. Mount Seymour Road provides a similar challenge. Riders on both routes are rewarded with viewpoints midway up each mountain, and the scream of wind in the vents of their helmets on the way down. Check your brakes!

• Deep Cove caters to boating and sailing folk with the Deep Cove Marina and the Deep Cove Yacht Club.

• The Seymour River doesn't provide the challenge of the nearby Capilano River, which stole Seymour's thunder when challenges were being handed out (but don't tell that to someone learning to paddle here). There's not a canyon in sight, just a shallow boulder-and-rock garden riverbed, with a small patch of fast water just before the river passes under the Seymour Creek Bridge near its confluence with Burrard Inlet. An old weir creates a sudden drop at this point. Hang onto your paddles. Best places to put in on the Seymour are either at Riverside Park at the intersection of Riverside Drive (East) and Chapman Way, or at the west end of Swinburne Avenue off Riverside. The take out is downstream from the BC Rail bridge over the Seymour at the west end of Spicer Road.

• If you enjoy hiking to viewpoints, there is a wealth of moderate hiking trails in Mount Seymour Provincial Park, near Deep Cove in North Vancouver. Use extreme caution when exploring its open summit, especially in the region around Mount Bishop, at 4,947 feet (1508 m) the tallest peak in the park. Weather conditions change quickly during storm season, and the route between peaks can become obscured. Each year this mountain gobbles an unwary hiker or two. To reach the park, travel east on Mount Seymour Parkway from the Second Narrows Bridge. For an easygoing introduction to the park, explore the 3-mile (5-km) section of the Baden-Powell Trail that runs east-west through the park near the base of the mountain. The park also has many sanctioned mountain biking trails, which link with many unofficial ones outside the park's boundaries, including the infamously challenging and colourfully named Severed Dick Trail. Mount Seymour also offers both cross-country and downhill skiing, tobogganing and snowshoeing in winter.

• The Seymour River Fish Hatchery and Education Centre in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve has ponds full of coho and steelhead fry beside Hurry Creek. The fish hatchery and education centre are run by the Seymour Salmonid Society. You'll have to make your way almost to the Seymour Dam to see them. By then you'll need a break. Follow the trail from the hatchery to the river, where you'll discover a sweet little beach offshore by which the fry school when first released in spring. Come summer, you can even take a dip with them!

• If it weren't for the fabulous canyon that Lynn Creek smashes its way through, there would hardly be reason to mention Lynn Canyon Park in the same breath as its oversized neighbours, Lynn Headwaters Regional Park and the Seymour Demonstration Forest. As it is, this triad of parks comprises one of the most exciting and integrated networks of protected land in the Lower Mainland. Lynn Canyon's contribution is its marvellous suspension bridge. Trails follow both sides of the canyon and lead upstream to 30 Foot Pool and downstream to Twin Falls Bridge. A tall wooden staircase assists walkers and cyclists to venture north through the park from 30 Foot Pool to its borders with the Seymour Demonstration Forest. One trail to follow when exploring Lynn Canyon is a section of the Baden-Powell Trail that winds through the park on its long journey across the North Shore.

• Nestled under a canopy of lush evergreens beneath the peaks of the North Shore Mountains, neighbouring North Vancouver is located on the North Shore of Vancouver, one of the most beautiful and exclusive areas in Greater Vancouver. When Captain George Vancouver sailed into Burrard Inlet on June 13th, 1792 he could not have imagined that he was in Canada's ultimate destination.

• See the best of the area on a driving Circle Tour. Head north out of Vancouver for a scenic tour of the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island, or stay on the intensely scenic Sea to Sky Highway, passing through the magical winter resort town of Whistler and looping through the Coast Mountains. To explore the rural farmlands and forests of the fertile Fraser Valley, travel outbound on the scenic route north of the historic Fraser River, returning westwards along the Trans Canada Highway 1 to Vancouver. Circle Tours in BC.