Canada Puts on a Fair That's Fun

By Gerald Clarke

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.

Perhaps the biggest attention grabber in the Canada pavilion, however, is Hystar, a 16-ft. flying saucer that bears more than a passing resemblance to one of Steven Spielberg's interstellar luxury liners. Filled with helium and propelled by five tiny rotors, Hystar puts on a show in the main hall every 20 minutes, moving, without help of strings or wires, up, down and sideways, as if it had never heard of gravity. The insouciant little saucer has been such a hit--often getting spontaneous applause--that its builders plan to equip it with a TV camera next month so that audiences can watch themselves watching it.

After a neck-wrenching look at Hystar, a visitor might do well to take the SkyTrain, a monorail actually, to the main part of Expo back across town on a 173-acre site along a harbor inlet. Most people probably will feel duty bound to see the pavilions of the Big Three, the U.S., the Soviet Union and China. The bad news is they are far apart from one another, and the lines in front are among the longest; the worse news is that they all seem to have signed a big-power pact to be boring.

China's looks like a discount warehouse, complete with piles of rugs and gewgaws. Inside the Soviet Union's pavilion, there are models of satellites and space stations, a huge pond on which a few little ships make desultory voyages, and a large relief map of the U.S.S.R., with lights pinpointing major cities and prompting a sense of unfortunate irony. In each group there is almost always some black humorist who asks, "Is Chernobyl the one that's glowing brightest?" The American pavilion, dedicated at the last moment to the seven astronauts killed in the Challenger disaster, deals exclusively with space. But most Americans, and most others as well, have already seen much of the material on TV. Even a full-scale interior mock-up of the yet-to-be-built space station has a tired back-to-the-future look: Captain Kirk's Starship Enterprise put on a better show.

All three countries might have taken a lesson from the Japanese, who have thought small rather than big. Much of their display consists of a miniature reproduction of the Japanese transportation system: trains scurrying along a maze of tracks, trucks and cars hurrying along the roads (but stopping obediently for red lights), boats going into harbors, and, up above, airplanes circling on eternal flight paths. Fairgoers whose eyes seemed to glaze at the space gadgetry in the other pavilions appeared mesmerized by this souped-up train set.

Serendipity may prove the best guide, for much of the pleasure of Expo 86 can be found in less expected places and in the more unsophisticated exhibits. The Thai pavilion, for example, contains the throne, 150 years old and encrusted with gold leaf, on which the Siamese King rode his elephant into battle. When the fighting became fierce, explains a helpful sign, the King would leap onto poor Dumbo's neck, the better to spear the enemy. If Hannibal had been so athletic, Carthage might never have fallen. The Singapore exhibit has a replica of a local market, right down to herbs, teas and garish magazines, and the Italian has replicas of Marconi's original radio sets.

Realizing that Canadians are sometimes thought to lack a sense of humor, the Expo planners have tried to counter that dour image by deploying strolling performers, robot minstrels and pockets of whimsy. "We wanted to be sure that people were entertained," says Jim Patterson, spokesman for the Canada pavilion. On a nice day there are almost certain to be gobs of children cavorting in a playground sea of plastic orange balls or in UFO H20, a humorous collection of splashing fountains made to look like alien space objects. The Land Plaza, with everything from a Singapore trishaw and a Philippine jeepney to a Hong Kong double-decker bus, provides comparable delights. Children, and more than a few adults, climb all over the extravagantly colored vehicles and honk their horns as if they had never heard such sounds before.

Squeals of excitement can be heard just about everywhere, from the diabolical stomach-churning Scream Machine roller coaster to the Space Drop, which simulates free fall from a height of 236 ft. "There are a few scary seconds while you're waiting for the parachute to open," admits one man who ventured up, and down, in a tiny capsule. "But it's a lot of fun."

Expo's main audience seems sure to be families. According to the local tabloid, the Province, Vancouver prostitutes are disappointed by the lack of swingers. 'SEXPO' BIG FLOP FOR GIRLS, headlined the paper. Shoppers are not lacking for other wares, however, from hot-weather Guayabera shirts at the Cuban exhibit to cold-weather Eskimo parkas and beautiful hand-knitted sweaters at the various Canadian exhibits. Because of a favorable exchange rate (the Canadian dollar is now worth 73 cents), prices are relatively cheap for Americans and even cheaper for foreigners equipped with superstrong currencies like the yen.

Adventurous eaters can nibble on everything from bangers and mash (Britain) to buffalo steak and caribou stew (Northwest Territories). To sip with the caribou, there is clear water from an 8,000-year-old Canadian glacier. For those who wander through Vancouver itself--and everyone should--there is wide culinary variety, everything from Afghan to Mexican. On Granville Island, a yuppie heaven of high-priced condominiums and boutiques, several good restaurants on the water top coffee and dessert with a view of the 10 o'clock fireworks display, which signals the fair's nightly closing.

The only real problem Expo 86 seems to face is overpopularity. Lines are already long and tedious, and despite the SkyTrain, the best way to get around --often the only way--is on foot. You heard it here first: take comfortable shoes and plenty of patience.