You can do one of two things that I have found that worked.
One as previously talked about...FedEx your stuff, by far the easiest. The other, when you check your bags and you know for sure(good availability) that your going to get on a flight sometime during the day....go ahead and tell the agent to send your luggage whether you get on or not. Your lugguge will (hopefully) be at that airlines luggage department in Vancouver, so if for any reason you can't make ANY flights, they will send it back. This has happened to me a few times and I haven't had any problems.