Stanley Park

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For other uses, see Stanley Park (disambiguation).

Stanley Park is a 4 km² (1,000 acres) urban park bordering downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is the third largest city-owned park in North America (trailing parks in San Francisco and Mexico City) and the third largest urban park in Canada (after Rouge Valley Park in Markham and Wascana Park in Regina.^[1] The park features many huge Douglas-fir, Western Redcedar, Western Hemlock, and Sitka Spruce trees. These trees can be up to 76 metres (250 ft) tall and hundreds of years old.^[2] It is estimated that eight million people visit the park yearly. The Project for Public Spaces ranked Stanley Park as the sixteenth best park in the world and sixth best in North America.^[3] There are approximately 200 km of trails and roads in the park, patrolled by the Vancouver Police Department mounted squad.^[4]

Contents 1 History 2 Attractions 3 Notes 4 References 5 External links

[edit] History

In 1886, Vancouver’s City Council petitioned the Government of Canada to lease the large, 1,000 acre (4 km²) military reserve on the peninsula northwest of downtown. This area had been logged many times since the first pioneers settled in the area and required some work before it was presentable. At Brockton Point, the city’s first graveyard was closed for the development of the park. Soon after establishment of this official "greenspace", the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, was created.

On September 27, 1888 the park was officially opened, where it was named after Lord Stanley, Governor General of Canada at the time. The next year on October 29, Lord Stanley himself, the first Governor General to visit British Columbia, officially dedicated the park. An observer at the event wrote:

Lord Stanley threw his arms to the heavens, as though embracing within them the whole of one thousand acres of primeval forest, and dedicated it 'to the use and enjoyment of peoples of all colours, creeds, and customs, for all time.'^[5]

Deadman's Island, a small island off Stanley Park, and now the site of a naval station, had been used as a burial ground by the Squamish, possibly a reason for its macabre name. During the 1860s to early 1880s, early settlers along Burrard Inlet also used the island, along with Brockton Point, as a burial ground and cemetery. Burials ceased when the Mountain View Cemetery opened in 1887, just after Vancouver had become a city. During a small pox outbreak in the 1880s, Deadman's Island was designated a pest house for quarantined victims of the disease.

The forest is primarily second and third growth. The area was saved from development because of its status as a federal military reserve; it occupied a strategic location for defending the former provincial capital of New Westminster in the case of an American naval invasion. Nevertheless, the federal government allowed logging operations there in the mid-nineteenth century. Large swathes of the park were also deforested by natural causes on two occasions in the 20th century. The first was a combination of an October windstorm in 1934 and a subsequent snowstorm in the following January that felled thousands of trees, primarily between Beaver Lake and Prospect Point.^[6] Another storm in October 1962, the tail end of Typhoon Freda, cleared a six acre virgin tract behind the children's zoo, which opened an area for a new miniature railway that replaced a smaller version built in the 1940s.^[7] The oldest trees that remain have been topped and otherwise pruned by Park staff for safety reasons.

In 1908, 20 years after the first petition for the lease, the federal ministry of defence renewed the lease of Stanley Park to Vancouver for 99 years, renewable in 2007. The 111 Pegasus Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron paraded in the park around the time of the first world war.

In 1994, when plans were developed to upgrade Stanley Park's Zoo, Vancouver voters decided in a referendum to phase out the zoo. The zoo began much earlier with a bear kept on a chain, but grew into a collection of over 50 animals, including snakes, wolves, emus, buffalo, kangaroos, monkeys, and Humboldt penguins. The Stanley Park Zoo closed completely in December 1997 after the last remaining animal, a polar bear named Tuk, died at age 36. He had remained after the other animals had left because of his old age. The polar bear pit, often criticised by animal rights activists, was converted into a demonstration salmon spawning hatchery.^[8]

The Vancouver Park Board now maintains over 192 parks at over 12.78 km² of land, but Stanley Park remains, by far, the largest. Construction of the 8.8 km (5.5 mile) seawall around the park began in 1914, but was not declared finished until September 26, 1971, and did not fully circle the park until 1980. James "Jimmy" Cunningham, a master mason, dedicated 32 years of his life to the construction of the seawall from 1931 until his retirement in 1963. Even after he retired, Cunningham kept coming down (once in his pyjamas) to keep an eye on the wall's progress, until his death at 85 on September 29, 1963.^[9]

The seawall is a popular destination for walking, running, cycling, and inline skating. There are two paths, one for inline skaters and cyclists and the other for pedestrians. The section around the outside of the park is one-way for cyclists and inline skaters, running counter-clockwise.^[10][11] The walkway has been extended several times and is currently 22 kilometres from end to end, making it the world's longest uninterrupted waterfront walkway.^[12] Unofficially, it starts at Canada Place in the downtown core, runs around Stanley Park, along English Bay beach, around False Creek, and finally to Kitsilano Beach. From there, a trail continues 600 metres to the west, connecting to an additional 12 kilometres of beaches and pathways which terminate at the mouth of the Fraser River.

[edit] Attractions

Further information: List of attractions and monuments in Stanley Park

Stanley Park contains numerous natural and man-made attractions that lure visitors to the park.

The park’s forest is the most obvious draw, with several hiking trails winding through a mature forest conveniently located within city limits. Because the park has undergone dramatic changes since it was first dedicated in 1889, several natural attractions have been affected. The Hollow Tree was, in bygone years, probably the most photographed park element, an obligatory stop for locals, tourists and dignitaries alike, and a professional photographer was always on hand to capture the visit for a fee. The tree was saved from road widening in 1910 by the lobbying efforts of the photographer who made his living at the tree.^[13] Automobiles and horse-drawn carriages would frequently be backed into the hollow, demonstrating the immensity of the tree for posterity. While the tree’s remains still draw viewers and is commemorated with a plaque, it is no longer alive and has shrunk considerably over the years, from a circumference of 18.3 (60 feet) many decade ago, to a more recent 17.1 m (56 feet).^[14] Another tree that has achieved fame is the National Geographic Tree, so named because it was featured in the magazine’s October 1978 issue. With a circumference of 13.5 m (44 feet, 4 inches), it was once one of the impressive big red cedars of the park. It has similarly diminished over time, ravaged by storms and topped by park staff for safety reasons to its present height of 39.6 metre (130 feet).^[15] A small stand of trees that has not survived, “The Seven Sisters,” is memorialized by a plaque and new replacement trees. The death of the distinctive fir tree atop Siwash Rock has also been memorialized with replacement trees. The original died in the dry summer of 1965, and through the persistent efforts of park staff, a replacement finally took root in 1968.^[16][17]

Recreational facilities are plentiful in the park, having long co-existed, albeit uneasily, with the aesthetic and more natural park features.^[18] The most used and favourite of these is the nine kilometre seawall encircling the park’s perimeter. The miniature railroad, which was built in an area leveled by Typhoon Freda in the 1960s, is especially popular as the “Halloween Train” and the “Christmas Train” during those seasons. The park also contains tennis courts, an 18-hole Pitch and putt golf course, a seaside swimming pool at Second Beach, and the Brockton Oval for track sports. Less interactive spectacles include the Aquarium, Canada’s first and largest since it opened in 1956, and the Malkin Bowl, rebuilt after a fire in the 1980s and home to local Theatre Under the Stars productions.^[19]

Until 1996, a main attraction in the park was a zoo, which grew out of the collection of animals begun by the first park superintendent, Henry Avison, after he captured a black bear and chained it to a stump. Avison was subsequently named city pound keeper, and his collection of animals formed the basis for the original zoo.^[20] Bear pits from the zoo remain and captive animals can still be viewed at the Children’s Farmyard.

Over the years a large and random collection of monuments has accumulated in Stanley Park, consisting of statues, plaques, and various other memorials commemorating a large variety of things. These include statues of Lord Stanley, poet Robert Burns, a runner, and President Harding; plaques commemorating the wreck of the SS Beaver, the sinking of the Chehalis, a tugboat that collided with the MV Princess Victoria, Pauline Johnson’s burial site, and the Salvation Army; a replica of the RMS Empress of Japan figurehead; and a timber structure that replaced the original Lumbermen’s Arch built by lumber workers for a visit by the Duke of Connaught. Gardens are also a common form of commemoration in the park.^[21]

Reflecting the view that the park should be kept in a more natural state and is already saturated, the park board has banned the erection of any further memorials. In what some have considered an exception to the ban, the park board agreed in 2006 to build a new playground at Ceperley Meadows near Second Beach honouring the victims of the Air India Flight 182 bombing. The federal government has earmarked $800,000 to build the playground.^[22] A local historian has also suggested the appropriateness of memorials marking the sites of communities that were displaced in the making of the park at Lumbermen’s Arch (Whoi Whoi), Prospect Point (Cathayoos), Brockton Point, and Kanaka Ranch (at the foot of Denman Street), although a formal proposal has not been put forth.^[23]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Foss, Lindsay. A Walk through Stanley Park. Travel. Canadian Geographic. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.
2. ^ Parkinson, Alison, Terry Taylor, Vancouver Natural History Society (2006). Wilderness on the Doorstep: Discovering Nature in Stanley Park. Vancouver: Harbour Publishing, 54, 52. ISBN 1-55017-386-3.
3. ^ Project for Public Spaces: The World's Best and Worst Parks
4. ^ Mounted Squad: Patrol District One
5. ^ Heather Conn, "The Origins of Stanley Park," in Chuck Davis, ed., The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopaedia. Surrey, BC: Linkman Press, 1997, 52.
6. ^ "The Damage in the Park", Vancouver Daily Province, 9 February 1934.
7. ^ Hazlitt, Tom. "It's for real -- this railroad", Vancouver Daily Province, 22 May 1964.
8. ^ "Vancouver residents say no to Stanley Park Zoo", Edmonton Journal, 28 April 1996.
9. ^ Griffin, Kevin, Terri Clark. "Grand Old Man of the Seawall", Vancouver Sun, 4 February 2005.
10. ^ "Last stone laid in park's seawall", Vancouver Sun, 27 September 1971.
11. ^ Griffin, Kevin, Terri Clark. "Grand Old Man of the Seawall", Vancouver Sun, 4 February 2005.
12. ^ Pleiff, Margo. "Vancouver seawall links city's urban and natural delights", San Francisco Chronicle, 15 May 2005. Retrieved on 2006-12-01.
13. ^ Koshevoy, Himie. "Saga of Stanley Park", Vancouver Daily Province, 7 June 1962.
14. ^ Steele, Mike (1993). Vancouver's Famous Stanley Park: The Year-Round Playground. Vancouver: Heritage House, 108. ISBN 1-895811-00-7.
15. ^ Steele, Mike (1993). Vancouver's Famous Stanley Park: The Year-Round Playground. Vancouver: Heritage House, 108. ISBN 1-895811-00-7.
16. ^ "Park Tree's Loss Stirs Memories", Vancouver Sun, 10 August 1965.
17. ^ "Park Still Feels Frieda's Punch", Vancouver Sun, 6 August 1968.
18. ^ McDonald, Robert A. J. (1984). ""Holy Retreat" or "Practical Breathing Spot"? Class Perceptions of Vancouver's Stanley Park, 1910-1913". Canadian Historical Review LXV (2): 139-140.
19. ^ Foss, Lindsay. A Walk through Stanley Park. Travel. Canadian Geographic. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.
20. ^ Steele, R. Mike (1988). Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation: The First 100 Years. Vancouver: Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, 13.
21. ^ Osbourne, Stephen (July/August 2004). "Monuments and Memories". Canadian Geographic 124 (4): 47-50. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.
22. ^ Kittleberg, Lori (6 July 2006). Air India tribute proposed for Ceperley Park. Xtra West!. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.
23. ^ Barman, Jean (2005). Stanley Park’s Secret. Vancouver: Harbour Publishing, 18. ISBN 1-55017-346-4.

[edit] References

• History of Metropolitan Vancouver.
• Vancouver Residents Say No to Stanley Park Zoo, Edmonton Journal, 28 April 1996
• Bears, sea lions for aquarium? Vancouver Courier, 11 January 2001

[edit] External links

• Map of Stanley Park
• Vancouver Parks web site
• Stanley Park Ecology Society