Talk:Stanley Park

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Contents

[edit] Third-largest urban park

Just curious, does anyone know what the first and second-largest are? Central Park in NYC is 200 acres smaller according to its wiki article, and the urban park in Tacoma (the only other one under the urban park entry doesn't have a size listed. - Dharmabum420 09:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I researched this a bit and there seems to be conflicting measurements or definitions of "urban park". I've put my findings in the Urban park article and Talk:Urban park. --Ds13 17:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Forest Park (Portland) is listed as 5,000 acres.--Anchoress 02:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I didn't find a reference to that one. But I added that it's the 3rd largest city-owned in North America (which I'm guessing by the qualifier that Forest Park is not city-owned), and the third largest urban park in Canada after Markham and Regina.Bobanny 00:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trees 'hundreds of years old'?

My understanding of Stanley Park (vaguely supported by the statement in the article that the area was 'logged several times' is that it's all second growth +, which doesn't jibe with the info in the first paragraph that there are trees in the park that are 'hundreds of years old'.--Anchoress 03:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

It should be "over a hundred years old" --Usgnus 03:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
citation, citation, citation. This question came up again, so I looked it up in the Greater Vancouver Book. According to Terri Clark, who works for the Park Board and wrote the article, the National Geographic Tree is approximately 1000 years old. According to Clark, "the magazine proclaimed it one of the world's largest (almost five metres in diameter) and most ancient trees, as cedars go, at approximately 1,000 years old."
I happen to have the article from where the tree gets its name: Mike Edwards, "Dream On, Vancouver," National Geographic 154, no. 4 (October 1978): 467-491. What the article actually says is this (page 468):
At the end of downtown's thumb, other towers -- western red cedars and Douglas firs -- rise from thousand-acre Stanley Park, largest in the city."
The caption for the photograph of the tree (which is on page 479, not on the cover as some books will tell you - a gorilla taking a photograph is on the cover of this issue) says:
"Verdant mast sailing skyward, a giant western red cedar 21 feet across its base (right) towers over lesser trees in Stanley Park."
So...a cynical reading is that Clark twists the statement that 'the trees in the thousand-acre park, the biggest in the city' into 'the thousand year-old tree is among the biggest and oldest in the world' (the article isn't clear whether it means that the trees or the park are the biggest in the city).
A more generous interpretation is that Clark relied on other sources for the actual size and age of the tree (which shouldn't be hard to come by working for the Park Board) and simply made a mistake in saying that the National Geographic proclaimed it so. Would've been nice if Clark cited those sources though, huh? Anyway, I'll add the GVB citation to the article because the 1000 year claim is plausible despite my nitpicking (the entire park was not logged in the 19th century). I'll see if I can find a more definitive source some other time.Bobanny 21:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I just called the Vancouver Parks Board and they're looking up a study done by MacBlo and will get back to me; they said all the loggable trees were denuded during the several (according to her) loggings Stanley Park experienced in the 19th century. I won't change anything until I get a citation, but she says pretty much no way, as far as the age of Stanley Park trees. And if it's not referring to actual trees in SP, AND I get a citation stating how old the trees are, I think the reference should go because it is misleading. The information about how old the trees can get can go into the articles about the trees themselves. IF it's true that there are no trees anywhere near that old NOW in the park, it doesn't matter how old the trees can get. Anchoress 23:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
So, I found said tree and took a picture, which can be found here. I'm still skeptical that there are any thousand year old trees left, judging by the size of them walking through the forest. Lots of stumps that are probably that old or older, but of the ones that are still alive, I'm skeptical. This one, although it's still standing, looks, well, dead to me. It reminds me of a telephone pole, and it's obviously been topped. Bobanny 02:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I got a call back from the parks board, and they didn't give me a citation (it was a phone message), but the woman (whose name and phone no I can give privately if anyone wants) said the arborists assert that it's extremely unlikely that any of the trees in Stanley Park are anywhere near 1000 years old. According to her, they said there may be a few old growth trees in the forest, but they are likely no older than 400 years, and they (the arborists) doubt any trees could get that old. But be that as it may, they almost certainly aren't. She communicated that the arborists thought it would be irresponsible to give the impression that there are millenium trees in the forest, they are nowhere near that old. I have had a horrible migraine for days so I haven't called her back, but I will ask if there's anything published that we can cite, but that's the 'hearsay' evidence. Anchoress 02:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I've looked and your "hundreds of years old" conclusion seems to be the consensus. I changed that and added a citation from a recent book, so looks like we've come full circle on this question. Also changed the size, as the same book has trees much taller than what it said here (from the Vancouver Natural History Society). Bobanny 00:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buffalo - What type?

What type of buffalo does the park have? I'm working on Disambiguation and want to get the right link up, or I might just put a general link for bison up... ~~ user:missvain 12:57, 5 June 2006

You mean "did the park have" The zoo closed in 1997. I don't know the answer, but I would just change it to bison from buffalo. -- Usgnus 05:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
They were never part of the zoo; rather up in the miniature train enclosure, like the wolves, I think. I know the petting zoo is closed; haven't taken the train in years but I imagine if victims-in-captivity are now banned in the park the buffalo/bison are gone too. From what I remember they were Wood Buffalo - a common name in Canada for the Woodland Bison (once common in the Cariboo and Chilcotin, by the way, but long hunted out and otherwise squeezed out by cattle ranch range needs, as with the mustangs of the Chilcotin).Skookum1 07:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Right, sorry there (man, and I lived in Vancouver for quite some time too! Doh!). Thanks for the tip. Missvain 05:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC) user:missvain 1:48, 5 June 2006

My understanding is that buffalo is not found in North America; rather only bison. I doubt it was buffalo in the zoo. --Kmsiever 12:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

They aren't found in nature in North America, but neither are monkeys, penguins, or kangaroos which were also at the zoo. It was probably a bison, but I think we'd have a hard time knowing for sure. Why not just leave it at the disambig page? -- TheMightyQuill 18:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Technically, you're right, but don't tell all the people living a lie in Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump... --Ds13 22:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Came looking for Pauline Johnson monument location, but...

Checking to see where it was; I thought it was over by Brockton Point, in behind the Totem Poles, but according to the Pauline Johnson article it's near Siwash Rock (which would be fitting; see my comments on Talk:Siwash Rock). So I went by the Parks Board website, but lo and behold not much in the way of a map or list of monuments and such; only the main "attractions". So the Nisei memorial, the Pauline Johnson monument, the Harding memorial, the Princess Sophie memorial (I think that's it; a certain shipping disaster), the Empress of Japan figurehead, Lumberman's Arch and more are not listed on either Wiki or the VPB site. Weird. Not even Beaver Lake is listed (OK, not quite a lake anymore but it used to have rowboats on it, doncha know?). The history of the ring road - the first paved road in British Columbia by the way, and paved for bicycle use, not cars, using the crushed material of the ancient shell midden of Qwhy-qwhy (Lumberman's Arch area), in the early 1890s - that's worth mentioning; I'll get the cites (in Alan Morley's book I think; if not then in Major Matthews)- and the building of Hawaiian/Mexican style palapa canopies as rain shelters around it, especially at Prospect Point; not to mention Lumberman's Arch....geez, this listing has made me realize how incomplete the article is....hmmmmm.....Skookum1 07:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I responded about the Pauline Johnson memorial at the Siwash Rock page, but apparently she's by the restaurant at Ferguson Point, (formerly the Teahouse, but now called something else). She requested to be buried within sight of Siwash, so even though she's a fair distance, it's still within view. (She also requested that no memorial be erected in her honour!) I haven't seen the monument, but have read that it's pretty obscured in an area taken over by raccoons. As for your other comments, I begun working on this, partly as a result of finding the same thing you did - the Park Board has diddly listing what's all in the park. I've begun a list, and hope to get it fairly complete at some point, ideally with a sentence explaining said attraction. I'm trying to expand this one to, with the view that Stanley Park could be a good featured candidate eventually, but in a narrative structue that couldn't possibly be comprehensive on all the crap that's in the park, ..er.., I mean, important historical artifacts.Bobanny 00:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
She's is just south of Third Beach, and a tad north of Ferguson up in the trees beside the road. A tad obscure but still quite noticeable. Last time I was there, someone had recently places fresh flowers. I should snap a pic of it next time I'm there. --Keefer4 09:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deadman's Island

I moved this to its own page, partly because it's not technically part of the park, but also because there's other stuff to be added when I get a chance. For now, it's only a stub, but need not take up room here.Bobanny 19:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure the smallpox quarantine was the 1880s? It's stuck in my mind as the 1890s, or maybe that's in connection with a quarantine in Victoria in that decade. One thing that piqued my interest is that in a Central Canadian-written column a while ago there was particular date mentioned when Montreal became "the last major North American city to suffer a smallpox outbreak", and it was an 1890s date and I'd just read the stuff on smallpox in BC during the same period; but I guess from a Central Canadian perspective Victoria's still not a major city, and Vancouver wasn't until at least the 1960s (?). Aside from the 1880s-1890s issue (and I think it can be pinned down to exact dates/years) wasn't Deadman's Island also used for quarantine for the Spanish influenza outbreak here? Not that quarantine helped once the epidemic was already on the loose, just that health authorities tried to do something.Skookum1 19:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I checked the official park board history book, written mostly from the minute books it seems (by Mike Steele, who did a couple other SP histories/guidebooks) and it says 1888 to 1890 for the quarantine "Pest House." I don't recall reading anything about a quarantine during the influence epidemic. That was 1918 I believe, and at that time, Theodore Ludgate had control of the island, having leased it from the feds for a saw mill. He cleared it, but went broke and his lease expired in 1924. Bobanny 12:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] recent edits

I just did a bunch of editing and thought I should explain myself a little and comment.

  • First, I removed this:

The 111 Pegasus Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron paraded in the park around the time of the first world war. Without any context, it adds nothing to the article, IMO. The park was used for defense in both world wars, and something along those lines would probably be a good fit with this, but a line about why this squadron is significant needs to accompany it. (just checked the article and apparently it wasn't created til 1939. Bobanny 16:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC))

  • There'll probably be more info on the recent storm stuff in the next few months, but please try and incorporate anything new into what's already here. Watch out for time-sensitive language, like "recently," "currently," etc., or else it sounds like a news report or blog, and this should be a little more long term. Also, check factual details carefully, like the number of trees. There's no basis for the claim that many thousands of trees were destroyed, although some news reports gave that impression, and generally used very emotionally charged language, things like how douglas firs were shattering the seawall like glass might make a good read with your morning coffee, but is it accurate? I also took out the fundraising campaign, because this isn't really the place for advertising.
  • I put back the 16th best park in the world. It's cited, and it's not intended as an insult - that's actually impressive. Bobanny 13:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment re village memorials

Actually on:

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 (Chaythoos), Brockton Point, and Kanaka Ranch (at the foot of Denman Street), although a formal proposal has not been put forth.[38]

Jean Barman's "agenda" gets a bit tiresome, as well as her various gaffes and misfires; I'm gathering that the above list is taken from her book on the park, but her "big book" has stuff in it that gets quoted that's just, well, wrong. But you can get stuff published when you've got a bunch of degrees and a teaching desk out on Point Grey, even if you're wrong. Anyway, Chaythoos to my knowledge was never a village, and couldn't be (no beach); the cliff-face there is a spirit-place, inside of which lives the rainmaker spirit who guards the entry to the inlet; not a place that humans would or should live. Whoi-whoi, which is a really bad anglicization of what's more normally (from Maj. Matthews and closer to modern Squamish orthography) Qwhy-qwhy, meaning "masks", and was a bona fide village, albeit dedicated to ceremonial purposes and only a couple of "medicine elders" lived there year-round, including the last few who were turfed out in the 1920s or sometime since. Qwhy-qwhy's shell midden, comparable to the Great Marpole Midden, was excavated to crush its shell deposits in order to pave the original Ring Road (Vancouver's first pavement, and notably paved not for automobiles, but for bicycles, which were mainstream public and upper class transportation/recreation in the 1890s). Barman's "agenda" surfaces by her inclusion of the Cherry Orchard (Kanaka Rancherie) and the non-First Nations residents of Brockton Point (and presumably Deadman's Island and certain other places in the park); her books obsess over non-white settlers/citizens, going so far as to focus on Portuguese such as Joe Silvey while ignoring his neighbours and friends (i.e. those who weren't First Nation or Kanaka or mixed blood) as "less interesting" than the ones she wants us to find interesting (that non-white British Columbians supposedly stuck together, with groups like the Portuguese lumped into "non-white" for convenience....funny how she doesn't also examine how Scandinavians also intermarried and lived among natives...but they're too white to talk about, and besides we're all assimilated, too). Yes, the Kanaka Rancherie deserves commemoration (and its original houses and cherry trees should have been preserved - about where the boathouse on Lost Lagoon is) but in the reviews of her book it talked about it as though it was an Indian Reserve and Kanakas were treated as poorly as natives and Chinese yadayadayada...that they had been "forced" to live on Lost Lagoon. Nix. The Kanakas who were originally in the Cherry Orchard had chosen it as a good place themselves, and while it grew in size after the Gastown Riots of winter made Gastown proper uncomfortable for non-whites (including Seraphim Fortes, who was moved to English Bay because of all this) it's not as if the Kanakas were held in disrespect by other Gastownites (certainly potentially by newcomers from the East, who typically are those who engageed in anti-Indian, anti-Chinese etc behaviours, as in the preceding winter riots). Likewise with what I saw about what she wrote about Brockton Point, as if it were some kind of non-white ghetto created by forced exclusion from Gastown; what she can't prove or state with a bald face she'll achieve by imputation or insinuation; that there were others than non-whites on Brockton Point (Cornish, Welsh, German, Finns, Irish and others) doesn't faze her one bit; the thesis in her book as I saw it reviewed was that Brockton Point was for coloured people and that's why the squatters there were kicked out; because they were non-white. Nope, they got kicked out because they were squatters, and those that got kicked out included as many whites as non-whites. But in Jean Barman's world, the truth that was doesn't matter; the truth that she and other entrenched historians want to establish is the one that counts. Problem in BC is there's no real peer review on popular histories written by academic historians; Saltwater City, Kanaka, The West Beyond the West and countless other books by Barman and her colleagues are full of errors of judgement and/or fact that are beyond the ken of the copy editors and fact-checkers in their Toronto publishing houses (and in most Vancouver publishing houses, such few as remain); speculation based on knee-jerk political correctness is rampant in such work; such as Barman's allegation that Brockton Point was cleared of its squatters because they were non-whites. That's just crap, but she's got a Ph.D. and gets invited onto talk shows to talk about her ideas, while I don't (have a degree, or get invited onto talk shows...well, no, I do get invited onto talk shows, but that's a different topic)...just because someone has a degree and a teaching position and gullible publishers has nothing to do with whether they know what they're talking about or not.Skookum1 20:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I am gonna get the midden/ring road in at some point, just haven't got around to it yet, and something more about Stanley Park squatters. In one respect, I agree with you that the issue of people living in the park is more about them being squatters rather than their race - race was a factor, but over-all, it was a mixed bag race-wise that was living there, and ill-treatment of non-whites didn't follow the same logic that you could apply to all park squatters. My beef is that people have always and continue to live in the park, and Barman's story ends in the 50s when the last squatter died. Every dry summer -- most recently 2003 and 2006 -- there's a bit of hysteria worked up in the Province letter to the editor section about how all those squatters need to be forcibly removed so that they don't burn the park down. Fat-cat American tourists smoking cigarettes in the park are never cause for concern.
As for the rest, are you sure she's not an ex-girlfriend of yours or something? The monument thing wasn't just me being a Barman lackey, but a device to mention that there were people living there until I can get something more about it in there. Barman's book on the park is as comprehensive on the subject as it should be, with loads of detail and research that won't be found elsewhere, and for that reason is the most authoritative publication on the subject thus far. You can disagree with her pc analysis, but it can't be dismissed as being wrong compared to other sources, because nothing else attempts to thoroughly treat the subject. The closest thing is this, which is far more indignant and pc and liberal white guilt-ridden than Barman, and it uses xw'ay xway, which presumably wouldn't sit well with you either by comments you've made elsewhere. Whoi Whoi is Maj. Mathews spelling, and Barman acknowledges that, and the other spellings, and gives a similar explanation for choosing that one as you do for preferring Squamish Nation as the title for that article. Whoi Whoi is also the one used by the park board and the Stanley Park Explorer, which, along with Mathews and Barman, makes it the most commonplace spelling.
Notwithstanding my comment above, race was definately a factor in evicting people from the park on racist grounds. Almost all traces of native occupancy were erased by a colonialist agenda that wanted to, and pretty much did, replace it with its own representation of indianness, like the totem poles and the Indian Village they were originally supposed to be part of at Lumberman's Arch, while all trace of Whoi Whoi was erased. As recently as the 80s, the first totem pole that was bought from the Queen Charlotte's, was replaced with a replica and lay rotting in the woods. The petroglyph rock too, apparently was a bit of an ordeal to have it shipped into the park from up north. You couldn't make this bizarre stuff up (neither could Barman), and it is racist and is all for the sake of having the inauthentic but lucrative tourist attraction that it is today (the totems are the biggest tourist draw in the province, apparently). To imply, as you seem to be, that Stanley Park has a history that cannot be characterized as racist is just wrong.
On a final note, I'm not that crazy about Barman's writing either (her PhD is in Education, not history, just to avoid being positional on the subject). But it's as good if not better than a lot of local histories, like Morley or Morton, that we have to work with. Bobanny 01:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] comment on recent storm damage

I've been following news updates on the damage to Stanley Park, and just thought I'd mention how wildly they differ. Numbers I've seen for trees knocked down or damaged are: unknown as of yet, hundreds, as many as a thousand, thousands, 3 thousand, and 20% of the trees in the forest. This last one, if we use the figure on the park board's website that estimates a total one million trees in the forest, would mean that 200,000 trees were destroyed. Nothing I've seen indicates that any systematic attempt has been made to estimate an actual number, or even that park staff have even got to all areas of the forest. These numbers come from guesses more than estimates, from aerial views and just browsing around at the damage by staff and/or journalists. (this is all from CanWest publications and the CBC website). Also, information coming from park staff may sound authoritative, especially from people who have worked there for years, but news accounts also mention how emotionally distraught they are, probably both because of the time and energy they've spent nurturing the forest and because so much of the planting and upkeep they've done for years has been erased. I haven't been to the park yet myself, but comparing to the old newspaper reports from the 1934/5 storms and the 1962 typhoon, this seems comparable. It was basically a logging camp after Typhoon Freda, and they sold all the wood to help pay for the clean-up. If you've walked through the forest, especially around the miniature railway, you can see how many jumbo trees were lost then. The media coverage this time, however, seems closer to the 1930s. The Province whipped up as much hysteria as possible, but it was the depression and the big concern then was finding the money to clean it up before it could became a major fire hazard. The goal of that campaign was to generate the political will from higher levels of government to finance the clean-up. Anyway, just thought I'd share, and make a note that even the #s used in this article should be taken with a grain of salt even though they are properly cited and come from seemingly credible sources. Bobanny 10:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bobanny and Skokum, Stanley Park is #1, not #16

Bobbany and Skokum - I believe my latest version is shorter, more precise, and more up to the point. It is not important to point out data that Stanley Park is 16th in the place. That's simply not true. I mean, the agency selected ugly Mexican park to be #1 in the world, and that park doesn't even have 1/3 of features and beauty of Stanley Park. The agency has discredited itself and we should not quote it. How can one put ugly, dirty, Mexican park on #1 place and Stanley Park on the 16th place? It's ridicolous. I strongly oppose information from discredited agencies to be included into Stanley Park article. I've been in Mexico and seen the ugly dirty park they selected as "#1 Park in the World", and it can't even be compared with our Stanley Park. Don't include that info, as by doing that - you are only insulting the most beautiful park in the Universe (Stanley Park!). Bosniak 06:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

First, if you have issues with the ranking thing, you don't have to revert all the other changes that have been made. Be specific: what's unnecessary detail of those changes? Spacing the photos better? Copyediting? Which historical details that have been added do you think are irrelevant? Or do you really give a shit? As for the ranking, it's not a pissing contest or a beauty pageant. That group has specific criteria that isn't about how pretty the park is, and the wikilink and footnote are both there so people can see what their agenda and criteria are and decide if it's a valuable ranking. I'm not hung up on that link, and wasn't the one that put it there. But out of respect to others' efforts, there should at least be a valid reason for removing it, and what you've expressed has nothing to do with it's inclusion. There's nothing more boring than a park article that says it's the biggest and prettiest in the universe. This isn't a tourism website. And yes, I realize the 3 revert rule is 24 hours, which is why I said to think about the spirit of the rule as the important thing. You haven't engaged in good faith with myself or others on this article, and I will continue to treat such thoughtless reversions as acts of vandalism and bad faith. If I am wrong on this, then address the points raised by myself and others rather than authoritatively asserting your personal judgements as if that decides Wikipedia content. Bobanny 07:51, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stanley Park Causeway

While writing my new additions, it occurred to me that there are a couple of other things in the park worth separate articles on (below), but quickly to suggest here that Stanley Park Causeway is as much a vanished-structure article, or at least a lengthy one; it used to be a trestle, with the streetcar right over, I think, to a loop where the big oak came down during the windstorm; the use of the term for the road to the Lions Gate only came into use once that got built, of course; but as a material object and term it has a long history, and sort of falls into the Bridges of Vancouver category, no?Skookum1 23:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] xway xway

Which is apparently the correct Skwxwu7mesh spelling (no caps, although the article title will come out that way), so Whoi whoi, Qwhy qwhy, hyphenated or otherwise and anything else, should all redirect there. I popped by the page because of various conversations with User:OldManRivers today, just to check to see if there was already Whoi whoi or whatever, as he's about to start xway xway to go with xwemelch'tsn and st'a7mes (sta7mes?) and other articles about his peoples' villages/locations. That's why I got distracted and added to the Lumberman's Arch thing; speaking of which I'll dig up a picture of the original temple-style arch, because it was pretty cool (as were a lot of the old parade arches, which could use an article at some point).Skookum1 23:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Funny, we seem to have the same brain pattern, since I just made edits to the history section only to find your comments were written here at the same time. - TheMightyQuill 23:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
It's interesting to note this kind of information. I knew a bit of the history of how it was stolen and everything, but that kind of specifics is interesting to note. I wasn't sure about August Jack's death, but he still might of been born at xwayxway for what ever reason. (They were journeying somewhere, he had family there, or something). OldManRivers
A good online source for this is Susan Mather's MA thesis: One of Many Homes: Stories of Dispossession from "Stanley Park". I find it a little hokey, but it has tons of research and is fairly comprehensive. She draws from the court transcripts in the 1920s trials to evict the so-called squatters, which is a good oral history source. Bobanny 00:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other than rock garden and Nisei garden...

There were a couple of other things that occurred to me here....hmmmm - oh yeah, apparently all the flowering cherry that's all over Vancouver was a 1920s or 1910s donation to the city from the government of Japan, also a lot of the Japanese maple (cite is in Morley, maybe Matthews, possibly MacDonald's Visual History also). That seems worthy of an article although I'm not sure what to call it. As for the rock garden and Nisei garden, perhaps the rose garden and certain other "landscaping objects" need their own histories/descriptions (Ceperley Park used to be a gravel isthmus between the shore of the West End and the shore of Stanley Park, and had "wash" over it at high tide...), as also things like the rowing club and yacht clubs. Is Brockton Oval an article? It should be.Skookum1 23:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Note that there's a List of attractions and monuments in Stanley Park that I created so that this article wouldn't become too unwieldy. A good source for the park's contents (though not perfect, especially on history) is this national historic site research document. Also I added refs for the rockery. The Courier had a big article on it last summer, long before the storm exposed it. It's a good rag, and all online, for local stuff, and regularly has local history-based articles. Bobanny 23:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lord Stanley/indigenous occupants

Not to disagree, but to point out that also at the time of Stanley's declaration it had been military preserve since 1859 (or 1858? - but I think it was '59 and will get back on that) when Moody, Moberley, Burnaby et al. did the first land survey of the inlet and Ulxsen (the Vancouver peninsula, aka sometimes Burrard Peninsula although to me that term means downtown and SP only)), part of which involved the setting aside of military reserves, of which Stanley Park was one and most of the others are where they wound up at (Point Grey, Jericho, etc. - I was gonna do a map to go with a hoped-for article) on the Military Clique Lands Scandal, which is the best I can come up with for a title for the occasion as there was no press around to tag it with one. the "clique" terminology is from what they were called in the Island's Assembly; the other surveys were private allocations taken by military brass (all of the above, plus Admiral Baynes and others, and all were reverted and resurveyed and allocated into the basis of the land divisions since (though Burnaby did get a big chunk...only some of what's now Burnaby instead of all of it). As far as I can tell, though, all the military reserves set aside stood for years; these are now Lighthouse Park, Cates Park, Pacific Spirit Park/UEL, Stanley Park, some patch of the Port Moody waterfront - maybe the park at the head of the harbour (forgotten its name just now) and others. Anyway, I'd add this to the article but habitually avoid complicated topics, i.e. when needing to summarize them; the point is that the Lands Act of 1858 (or whatever its official title is), which established land law in the province and was caught up in one of the biggest scandals of the early colony (though nowhere near the only one, and one which has been hushed up since with pioneer/hero-worship, like so many other scandals), was when Stanley Park was made a military reserve, presumably under the effective command of Moody at first and I'm not sure who after that - "senior military officer in the colony" is the usual term, and seems to have excluded the Royal Navy because doesn't Rear-Admiral outrank Colonel? Anyway, whatever you could clip out of this that could mention the military reserve, again in spite of obvious native occupancy and spiritual signficance all over the ying-yang at the time, that was established in 1859, which was what Lord Stanley turned over to park in whatever year it was. BTW attention Keefer or Bobanny who're probably reading this - the old palapas that used to stand around the Stanley Park ring road at viewpoints and as rain shelters, e.g. Prospect Point and elsewhere - are almost worth an article, and the pictures are PD even under US copyright rules (pre-1907 should be fine, huh?.Skookum1 01:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Your favourite, Jean Barman, gets into the politics around designating the military reserves, but I just skimmed past that part. My atlas (Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of Vancouver) probably has something on the military reserves in the area besides SP. An interesting bit of trivia noted by Major Mathews is that Lord Stanley's back yard in England was bigger than Stanley Park. Bobanny 06:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Does she give some kind of sobriquet/title for it? Just looking for something less awkward sounding; just Military Lands Scandal (British Columbia) (w/wo the BC) might do... - or not?Skookum1 07:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Morley is just kind of glib about it but at least talks about it; the Akriggs dont mention it at all, I don't know about Ormsby but it's in Kerr and I'd imagine Begg; and you'd think Bancroft would be all over it, given his apparently critical nature towards British rule and rulers. I don't recall anything in Matthews, but there's so much in there about so many things I couldn't say for sure if there was or not. There's no mention in MacDonald's Pictorial History, where I was hoping to find a map of the military reserves; AFAIK they were the same as now, roughly, relative to whatever they've become since (Jericho, Point Grey, Stanley Park, etc; I think Greer's Beach may have been, but that lapsed at some point as the CPR tried to get it out from under Sam Greer, the guy who stood up to them and who's why we have a beach there today; otherwise it'd be big nasty docks and Kits would be, well, like Yaletown used to be, or the main waterfront on the inlet...senakw or however it's spelled might have become, I think, military reserve before it became park, or some kind of non-Indian reserve, but there was some politics I know with it when the building of the Burrard Bridge came into play, so maybe it's the Coast Guard station that was the military land there, rather than August Jack's place/senakw (OMR?).Skookum1 06:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of lords, estates, and the stately houses that go with them, Minnekhada Provincial Park/Minnekhada Regional Park, whichever it is, should probably have a separate article; the house itself is even in a non-BC style and AFAIK was the first real "lordly" house on the Mainland, other than those in Shaughnessy and Blueblood Alley (which didn't come with as much real estate) - other than Government House in New West, though, I guess. Point is it was a G-G's residence, and the name is Abenaki or Anishinabe or something, rather than from a local language; not that well-known but the estate and house are distinctive and notable There's other big estates around the Valley maybe worth mention, similar in nature/history to Ashcroft Manor and the Coldstream and Fintry etc.; I'll give it some thought and try and come up with a short list. One, on the margins of the category, is All Hallows (house) in Yale, which was Onderdonk's residence and then became the premiere girls' school on the Mainland for a number of decades; with native girls studying right alongside white ones. It's a campground/trailer park now I think....Skookum1 06:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW you might want to look up a Pelican/Penguin book called The Making of the English Lanscape, can't remember the author; once I read it, it became easier to udnerstand/perceive historical geography/landscapes around here, including the indulgences of English landscaping, which sought to perfect nature to parkland, lawns, organized gardens meant to look wild, etc. SP has been affected by that, prodigiuosly, as has the whole cty....

I looked in my atlas and there's a bit there. It was the Pre-emption Act of 1860 that got them moving. He doesn't discuss it in scandalous terms the way Barman does (I think she was making a point about the dubious legal claim to SP, and no, I don't recall her naming the scandal). I'd suggest slotting it in the Richard Moody article (I didn't know there was one til I looked it up just now, and tagged it and made some redirects). James Morton's other history book is about Stamp and Moody, and I believe Eric Nicol has a book on Moody as well, if you're headed to VPL sometime you could check those out. From the bit that Hayes writes about this, it appears that in Vancouver, only SP and Jerry's Cove were military/naval reserves, and much of the rest were simply "government reserves" (Granville townsite, much of what would become the CPR land grant, Hastings townsite, Point Grey).
Please see [this on OldManRivers' talkpage]. As for Point Grey, it was military land when it was given over to UBC after the Great March, and of course had been a base in the Great War and Second War, too, I think; hence the submarine towers...Skookum1 09:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I see the 1860 ref in Morley now; I was remembering 1859 because that's when the survey was done; remember also that this was before there was even any thought of Indian Reserves.Skookum1 09:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
On the landscaping thing, I've read bits on that sort of thing, not for a while though. What makes SP distinct from other large urban parks is that it wasn't designed and laid out by a landscape architect (Frederick Law Olmstead was the big cheese in that dept.), so it's kind of a hodge podge of English fads and laissez-faire. L.A. Hamilton was big into that stuff, and I believe he's responsible for those little "pictureseque" bridges that dot the park. The Grey squirrels that are now everywhere are descended from a present from Central Park so that SP would have the correct type of park animals. I think much of that thinking still underlies urban environmental design/management. It's truly mind-boggling how much resources are spent trying to keep SP "natural," usually in spite of nature. Bobanny 08:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stanley Park Ring Road/Park Drive (Stanley Park

Just to note that like the Causeway this is definitely a historic/notable road article; it was the first pavement in British Columbia (for bicycles, twenty years before cars were common) and was paved, as I've probably said elsewhere, by the crushed clamshells of the xwayxway midden; when the road was bulit there were still people living in houses in the midst of the old village when the crews arrived to dismantle the midden and demolish houses to build the road, with the old woman who lived there screaming at the foreman, who just shrugged her off and laughed at her (as humorously told by the recountant, possibly Matthews but I can't recall exactly). I know that, long after this, there were still one or two elders who lived in those houses now occupied by park staff, just in the Brockton Oval and/or Lumberman's Arch area; part of a deal over it long ago or something; but the remains of xwayxway are the base/foundation of the Stanley Park Ring Road, as it was at first called, now officially Park Drive but I think I remember seeing the old sign when I was a kid. Should the monkey cages/seal pool get a buildings entry, by the way? Kind of unusual, as well as stinky; but then the same goes for the general architecture of the whole pool/aquarium area, and architectural items on the heritage buildings in the park are probably worthwhile at some point; there's a separate artcle on Malkin Bowl, surely?Skookum1 01:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The history that I knew of was, the government came into the village of xwayxway, said "You can stay here for now, but once you die, that's it. Everyone as to leave, but only if you've been living here can you stay." The last one was the Aunt Sally (Sexwalia is the name I know her as). She was the last person to live there. OldManRivers 05:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Aunt Sally was the only one with documentation showing continuous residence in the park (going back to 1860 I believe) at the 1920s eviction trials. I believe the government took a harder stance and moved to evict at that time (despite the "you can live there til you die" promise) because there was a lot of development for sports facilities and tourist traps. As of the more tragically bizarre expressions of colonialism, the initial proposal for the x'way x'way site was to erect a replica Indian village there.
There was another person, a half-white blind guy (name escapes me right now) who was allowed to live in the park til he died in the 1950s (I don't remember exactly where). After he died, Major Mathews fought to prevent his shack from being demolished, and succeeded for about 5 years, while he lobbied for it to be turned into a museum. Jean Barman (Stanley Park's Secret) paints this as a typical injustice. But from the newspaper articles I've looked at, Squamish leaders opposed the idea, partly because his "Indianness" was in question, but also because it was a rickety, run-down shack, not conducive to a positive representation of the Squamish people, which seems a reasonable objection to me. Apparently the only acceptable native presence was either as a museum exhibit showing a dying people, or a fabricated memorial of a people already lost to history. Bobanny 06:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
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