It was on May 19th, 1960 that Governor General Georges Vanier unveiled a statue of Lord Stanley the park named in his honor. The statue depicts Lord Stanley, who was Governor General in 1888, standing with outstretched arms, welcoming all to the park. The 8-foot tall statue, made of bronze and granite, is his week’s [...]

On a sunny Vancouver morning I set out on a walk with a dear friend around the Stanley Park sea wall. We ducked into the park around Second Beach and decided to take a detour through the gardens around the pitch and putt course. Armed with our pocket cameras, we spent close to an hour [...]

I love stepping under the canopy of Stanley Park‘s forest trails, detouring from the concrete paths of the Sea Wall and surrounding thoroughfares. A few years ago I profiled the origins of several Stanley Park Trail Names including Merilees, Rawlings, Tatlow, Thompson, and Tisdall. Tourism Vancouver recently launched their ultimate guide to Stanley Park (useful [...]

Vancouver Parks Golf has a variety of courses across the city that offer great greens, fresh air, and a fantastic excuse to get outside and enjoy our gorgeous west coast scenery. Full Courses Fraserview Location: 7800 Vivian Drive Features: Par 72, driving range, home of the The Golf Institute, lessons available, pro shop Green fees: [...]

Walking around Stanley Park nowadays there are hardly any remnants of the zoo that once housed over 50 species of animals, from monkeys and cobras to penguins and kangaroos. However, the old cement polar bear habitat still haunts the grounds just west of Brockton Oval and south of the Vancouver Aquarium. When I was young [...]

One of the things I love about Stanley Park is that it’s a natural oasis on the tip of a bustling metropolitan area. Taking a few steps under the canopy of evergreens, city sounds fade while the tune of rushing creek water amplifies. Raccoons prowl by the lagoon, bushy-tailed squirrels greet visitors, and harbour seals [...]

In honor of International Women’s Day in March, the Stanley Park Nature House will feature an exhibit about E. Pauline Johnson – Canadian poet and stage performer. I have profiled Pauline a few times before, even making a few pilgrimages to her modest monument between Ferguson Point and Third Beach in Stanley Park. Pauline, whose [...]

Cycling all 8.9 kilometers of the Stanley Park Sea Wall is just the thing to do when you visit or live in Vancouver. Cyclists on one side, pedestrians on another, rotating in counter-clockwise fashion. Tandems, unicycles (we caught a few of these the other day), cruisers, mountain bikes, and rollerbladers who hover somewhere in the [...]