THE MISCONCEPTION THAT Canada’s West Coast gets rain year-round evaporates with a summer visit to Vancouver’s plentiful bands of sand. The gorgeous statistic that only 10 per cent of the city’s rain falls in June, July and August is not lost on the legion or urban beachgoers who head southwest to escape the vertical glass of Lotus City, all the way to Jericho Beach. There they serve up volleyballs, fly kites, cast fishing lines and watch their kids play among the adjacent park’s 54 hectares of mossy trees and driftwood. Across English Bay, the city’s modern spires are eclipsed by lush Stanley Park to the west and the massive North Shore Mountains, seemingly floating on a sheet of clouds, north of downtown. The placid scene has hosted the Vancouver Folk Music Festival since 1978, appropriate audio for the soulful environs that first enchanted the Coast Salish people centuries ago.