Stanley Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Stanley Park (disambiguation).

An aerial view of Stanley Park. Brockton Point is on the right and the body of water at the edge of the city is Lost Lagoon. The Lions' Gate Bridge is at the top connecting to West Vancouver.

Stanley Park is a 4 km² (1,000 acres) urban park bordering downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The park features many huge Douglas-fir, Western Redcedar, Western Hemlock, and Sitka Spruce trees. These trees can be up to 55 metres (180 ft) tall and a 1000 years old.<ref>Davis, Chuck, Terri Clark (1997). Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopedia. Surrey, BC: Linkman Press, 158-159. ISBN 1-896846-00-9.</ref> 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 <ref>Project for Public Spaces: The World's Best and Worst Parks</ref>. There are approximately 200 km of trails and roads in the park, patrolled by the Vancouver Police Department mounted squad.<ref>Mounted Squad: Patrol District One</ref>

1 History
2 Attractions
3 Notes
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Image:Buberel Lord Stanley statue.jpg

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.'<ref>Heather Conn, "The Origins of Stanley Park," in Chuck Davis, ed., The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopaedia. Surrey, BC: Linkman Press, 1997, 52.</ref>

During the 1860s to early 1880s, early settlers along Burrard Inlet 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. Deadman's Island, a small island off Stanley Park, and now the site of a naval station, had also been used as a burial ground by the Squamish, possibly being a reason for its macabre name.

Image:Stanley tree.jpg

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.<ref>"The Damage in the Park", Vancouver Daily Province, 9 February 1934.</ref> Another storm in 1963, the tail end of Typhoon Freda, cleared a six acre virgin tract behind the children's zoo that allowed for the later construction of the present-day miniature railway.<ref>Hazlitt, Tom. "It's for real -- this railroad", Vancouver Daily Province, 22 May 1964.</ref> The oldest trees that remain have been mostly topped and otherwise pruned by Park staff for safety reasons.

Image:Stanley Park from West Vancouver.jpg

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.

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) trail around the park began in 1918, but not declared finished until September 26, 1971. 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.

Since then many more additions to the walkway have been built. It is the worlds longest uninterrupted waterfront walkway stretching for 22 kilometres.<ref>Pleiff, Margo. "Vancouver seawall links city's urban and natural delights", San Francisco Chronicle, 15 May 2005. Retrieved on 2006-12-01.</ref> The current unofficial Seawall starts at the city's core Canada Place, runs around Stanley Park, along English Bay beach, around False Creek, and finally to Kitsilano Beach in the south. The trail continues 600 metres to the west for 12 kilometres along the beach, winding up at the mouth of the Fraser river for a total of 32 kilometres (20 miles).^{[citation needed]} 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 park is one-way for cyclists and inline skaters, running counter-clockwise.

[edit] Attractions

Image:Beaver Lake 2006.jpg

Aquarium
Beaver Lake
Brockton Point, Brockton Point lighthouse
Children's Farmyard
Deadman's Island
Empress of Japan figurehead (replica)
English Bay Beach, Second Beach, Third Beach
"Girl in the Wetsuit" statue:Unable to obtain a licence to reproduce Copenhagen's The Little Mermaid statue, the city commissioned a modern version with diving mask, wetsuit, and swimfins.
Hollow Tree
Lions' Gate Bridge
Miniature Railway:The train is an exact replica of Locomotive Engine #374, which pulled the first transcontinental passenger train into Vancouver in 1886. The ride lasts 15 minutes, traveling though what used to be parts of the Stanley Park Zoo. For a few days around Christmas and Halloween, the area around entire length of track is dressed up in lights, and other decorations.
Theatre Under the Stars at Malkin Bowl
9 O'Clock Gun
Pitch and putt golf course
Plaque commemorating the wreck of the Beaver, the northwest's first steamship
Prospect Point
Rose garden
Siwash Rock
Totem poles
Two spirits sculpture: Slightly hidden, this sculpture is found just west of the crossroads of trails that enter into Stanley Park from the swimming pool located at Second Beach. The sculpture was created in the mid-1990's and depicts the silhouetted head of an aboriginal person against its own image. The sculpture was chiseled into a stump that remains from one the large trees in the area.