an assortment of photos by Mali Kos from our Cityspk.ca site.

Photos by Jef Choy from vancouverisawesome.com

The phenomenon is spreading like wildfire through the cold Canadian winter.

It has become indisputable that Awesomeness abounds and people seem to want to join in.

Vancouver is Awesome.

Montreal is Awesome.

And apparently, though this one is up for debate, Toronto is Awesome too.

The awesomeness is chalk full of city photos, city happenings, and all things, well, city awesome in their respective locales…

Vignettes of the disenfranchised and dispossessed who call Vancouver’s troubled Downtown Eastside neighbourhood their home. From the blog of filmmaker Austin Andrews.

Also, a related video from Homeless Nation a web based project of the NFB , a group of Eastside residents speak out about homelessness.

Dope sick and broke, Phil “gets better” in the alley behind Insite, the government-funded supervised injection site. He doesn’t like shooting in the alleys, where police take a harder stance, but would rather take the chance than queue for a spot inside. “Ten minutes is a long time to wait when you’ve got heroin in your hands.” The high is gone in another ten.

Image taken by 顔なし, Flickr Creative Commons

It isn’t only reserved for far the hinterland regions. The Vancouver region saw a serious mauling a few weeks ago. Is this the natural conclusion to seamlessly attaching a lush forested city to a vast rain forest?

Fortunately, in this instance the bear was only going in for the kill on the all-dressed twelve inch veggie special. A young bear with questionable table manners opened the door to a Subway restaurant and then sniffed around before leaving. The bears every move was caught on the store’s security camera.

In New York, the reverse is true — this is what kind of bears you get if you cover every inch of a town in concrete and packs things so tight you have to put the trains under the ground, with only the air grates to breathe from… this is an entirely different sort of subway.