Scattered about town are several false fronted wooden buildings that look old but where actually built in the 1940’s (give them another 35 years and they too will be century old buildings).

Since four major highways converge in Hope, it is logical that the visitor center and historical museum are the busiest we have encountered. One oddity at the museum is the exhibit dedicated to Rambo … Hope was used as the movie location and achieved certain fame as the town wasted in spectacular fashion by Sylvester Stallone at the end of First Blood, the first Rambo movie. For fans of this cult film, maps are provided to the film location sites and a VCR set up to watch the action one more time ... needless to say we passed on this one.

Our introduction to all things Canadian was made easier since we were here for Canada Day (July 1st). Here in Hope the event was very low key ... we were told that Canadians just aren’t as patriotic as Americans. There were no fireworks or beer guzzling, but just music by several local garage bands, burro rides, and bean toss games at the visitor center. Surprisingly this tame event was patrolled by a lone RCMP just in case the overly polite Canadians decided to get wild and crazy.

We immersed ourselves into Canadian culture by watching the Canadian Comedy Channel (Canadian humor is … well, different), reading the Vancouver Sun "Seriously West Coast since 1912", drinking Fratello coffee at the Blue Moose Coffee Café (we are now officially addicted to the full bodied blend called Snake-Bite), and eating Triple “O” burgers with hand cut fries at the local White Spot … a legendary restaurant chain in Western Canada.

Our curiosity was peaked when we saw a sign in scenic Centennial Park that proclaimed: "Hope is a Sri Chinmoy Peace Town". After some serious inquiry, we learned that the Sri Chinmoy organization approached the town 15 or 20 years ago requesting that Hope become a member of the peace community (most likely the towns name was the motivation for the request). Upon further investigation we learned that Canada is a part of the Sri Chinmoy Peace Blossom Organization, and that a peace plaque by Sri Chinmoy was installed at the Statue of Liberty (since removed due to a law suit).

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