The Dunbar Chronicles is a great new walking tour quite unlike others… Brief anecdotes were collected from residents of the neighbourhood, and these anecdotes were then re-imagined into short fictional stories by local writers. The stories are located in public places (and a few other places) throughout the community as a literary walking tour.

The tour starts at the Dunbar Community Centre (4747 Dunbar St), where one can find maps of the tour. Maps are also available at the library a block away, or can be downloaded from the website (below). If walkers are really keen, it might take about 1.5 hours in total to visit all of the locations, but it works just as well by visiting just a few locations if folks don’t have time to complete the entire circuit. Also, the tour starts and finishes in Dunbar village where coffee, beer and food are available to start or end one’s trip! A surprising number of small patios await…

The Dunbar Chronicles is also part of the Salmonberry Days festival that occurs throughout the month of May.

There’s no tour leader, no start time, it’s a self-guided walk that can be taken anytime between now and the end of the month. However, some of the artists and writers will be on hand on a few dates to discuss the project – for more details go to the project website: https://workingholidayproject.wordpress.com/portfolio/the-dunbar-chronicles/.

The Dunbar Chronicles is part of the Working Holiday Project – a partnership of 3 community artists (Elisa Yon, Leah Weinstein and Jaspal Marwah) who are sharing a year-long arts residency at the Dunbar Community Centre.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to walk through your favourite novel? Close to 40 folks showed up during our launch in early May to find out! And guess what… the stories are still up this week in case you missed them (or stayed out of the rain).

Check out the choose your own adventure walking tour that CBC and other media’s been talking about lately.

Here’s all you need to check out the (self-guided) walking tour:

Go to the bulletin board on east 24th, between Main st & Ontario st and find the first Active Fiction chapter there. You’ll find all the instructions on where to find the rest of the story there as well. Then it’s up to you to wander the neighborhood and find the next chapters hidden in the area (but not hidden too secretly).

What is it?

We’re testing out a new kind of walking / art / public adventure: the Active Fiction Project. We’ll be launching a bigger version of this walking experience in the summer. Come and get a sneak peek & see what it’s all about.

Take this 5 second quiz to see if you should attend:

• You’re on the VPSN website right now
• You’ve been known to enjoy reading a book
• You like walking in neighbourhoods
• You like finding hidden things
• You don’t want to spend a lot of time

Any yes answers? Then head over to east 24th ave and get walking!

Visit the Project Website and share your experiences of the walk (#activefic is on twitter! facebook! flickr!)

Questions? Get in touch info@activefictionproject.com