Stanley Park Photowalk: Fall Colours

This morning we headed out for a photowalk, leaving behind the glassy towers of the City to walk among the greens, reds, oranges and yellows of autumn in Stanley Park.

The trails reminded me of milk-soaked cereal as the dry, crunchy leaves covered the moist and muddied forest floor.

The shallow and dried up path-side ditches of summertime were now rushing streams, floating multicoloured leaves from one end of the park to another. We looped around Beaver Lake, traversed some of our favourite old trails, and discovered a plethora of mushrooms and fungus that have been thriving in this cool, crisp and moist autumn climate.

We even happened upon one of the installations from the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project.

The photowalk ended with a quick visit the Stanley Park Nature House — an admission-free interpretive centre at the site of the old Lost Lagoon boat house.

Upon entering, I was immediately greeted by a poster sporting the lovely image of one of my heroes, E. Pauline Johnson. On the poster, titled “How Lost Lagoon Got its Name” one of Pauline’s poems was featured:

The lost lagoon
It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey,
Beneath the drowse of an ending day,
And the curve of a golden moon.

O! lure of the Lost Lagoon,–
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs,
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.

I highly encourage residents and visitors alike to take a stroll through Stanley Park, no matter the season. The beauty is there year-round and I don’t even need a camera to capture it as it has and always will leave an indelible photo set within my West Coast memory.

Related: Vancouver’s Fall Colours