Stanley Park

Stanley Park is a peninsula of forest attached to the edge of downtown Vancouver — some 405 hectares of cedar, fir and hemlock almost entirely surrounded by sea, with the glass towers of the West End on one side and the mountains of the North Shore on the other. It opened as a public park on 27 September 1888 and was named after Lord Stanley, then Governor General of Canada. Around half a million trees grow here, some of them hundreds of years old and taller than 70 metres, and the contrast between that dark coastal rainforest and the city a few minutes' walk away is what makes the park so unusual among the great urban parks of the world.

Long before it was a park the land belonged to Coast Salish peoples. A large village called Xwayxway stood where Lumberman's Arch is today, with longhouses dozens of metres long, and the Squamish and Musqueam used the peninsula for thousands of years; in 1888 residents were forced out to make way for the park road. Their presence is remembered at Brockton Point, where a group of carved totem poles has become one of the most photographed sights in Vancouver, and in the Squamish name of Siwash Rock — Slhx̱i7lsh, "he is standing up" — the lone sea stack off the western shore.

The best way to see it all is on foot or by bicycle along the seawall, a stone-faced promenade that runs about 9 km around the park's edge and continues far beyond it along False Creek. It took most of the 20th century to build; the master mason James Cunningham devoted more than three decades to it, and a plaque near Siwash Rock honours him. Along the way come the Nine O'Clock Gun, an old naval cannon still fired every evening, the bronze Girl in a Wetsuit on her rock, the lighthouse at Prospect Point beneath the Lions Gate Bridge, and the beaches of the western shore. Inland the park keeps quieter pleasures: Beaver Lake, almost covered with water lilies; Lost Lagoon, a former tidal inlet turned freshwater lake; and the Hollow Tree, the huge shell of an ancient cedar. A windstorm in 2006 brought down some 10,000 trees, and the replanted clearings show how the forest renews itself. The Vancouver Aquarium, Canada's largest, has stood in the park since 1956.

Getting there

Stanley Park begins at the north-western edge of downtown Vancouver, about 2 km from the West End; you can simply walk in from Coal Harbour, Denman Street or English Bay. The nearest airport is Vancouver International Airport (YVR), about 12 km away. A road loops around the park, but the seawall, on foot or by bicycle, is the classic way round.