We marked our ballots early last weekend for the municipal vote, and the numbers finally surfaced last night. Yet thanks to an ill-timed gamble by the ruling provincial party, an early general election arrived almost immediately on its heels. That overlap produced an unbearable din of competing campaign signs and lawn rhetoric, making it far harder for individual candidates to cut through the local static. The upside to this political clutter was purely logistical. It allowed us to turn out early once again today and cast our ballots for the province of British Columbia.We caught the local bus two stops up 6th Street and joined the tiny queue outside the New Westminster Armoury. Completed in 1895, the hall stands out as a genuine rarity among Canadian drill halls, which were almost universally built from heavy stone or brick. This facility was framed and sided entirely in regional timber, flanked by square towers with distinctive flared mansard roofs. Miraculously, the massive structure survived the Great Fire of 1898 that flattened downtown New Westminster, serving as emergency shelter for hundreds left homeless by the blaze. Wood outlasted the brick. Today it remains an active wooden military post, home to The Royal Westminster Regiment. Rounding toward the rear of the property, we caught sight of fresh recruits sorting gear and running through equipment checks in preparation for weekend exercises or upcoming deployment.
The line moved with crisp military efficiency. We were in and out of the drill floor within a couple of minutes, leaving behind the gratifying sensation of having our civic chores tidy and squared away. Rather than boarding transit for the return, we drifted homeward on foot through Tipperary Park, enjoying the quiet green slope before turning down 4th Street toward our building. These photographs offer a modest visual log of our morning loop through the neighborhood.