The Georgia Straight Presents the fourth biannual Vancouver Gem & Mineral Show

Western Canada’s largest gem show will bring over 80 of the best gem, mineral, and jewellery vendors from across Canada and abroad to Vancouver on the weekend of Friday, March 24.

The event at the Pacific National Exhibition Forum will showcase incredible and rare collections, as well as a series of attractions and educational lectures by Canada's top experts in the field.

Featured guests include German Kabirski, an artist born in Kabir, a small Lezgi village in Caucasus region of southern Russia. Kabirski experiments with materials and forms, combining gems with everything from silver, gold, and wood to leather and reptile skeletons. Twenty pieces of Kabirski exquisite jewellery will be raffled among the attendees.

Billy Gauthier of Northwest River, Labrador, is another featured artist. Gauthier’s art crosses over traditional Inuit artistry and into the modern art world. His carvings and work can be found in some of the finest Inuit art collections in the world, including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver.

Ed Jensen of Tk’emlups Traditions will do some knife-knapping demonstrations. He's a leading Secwépemc artist of a generation that emerged in the wake of residential schools and from the resulting cultural resurgence of the Secwépemc people. Jensen's art mimics tools and implements used by countless generations within the valleys surrounding Kamloops, and these implements were instrumental in the survival of its first inhabitants.

The show-time schedule:

Friday, March 24, 2017: 12:00 to 9 p.m.
Saturday, March 25, 2017: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday, March 26, 2017: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Admission Fees:

General: one-day ticket—$8; three-day ticket—$12
Senior/student: one-day ticket—$6; three-day ticket—$9
Children 12 and under free (with adult)

More information can be found here.