A Brief History Text by Pat Miller – Photos by Doug Cooper Located on Vancouver’s east side, Hastings Park is the second largest park in the City of Vancouver, after Stanley Park. It was established in 1889 when the Province of BC granted 62 hectares (154 acres) of land to the City, most of which is currently occupied by the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) and the Hastings Park Racecourse. Four hectares (9.9 acres) of the site is occupied by the…
Charleson Park to Granville Island Text and Photos submitted by Janet Snell Charleson Park didn’t exist before the late 1970s when it was constructed out of excavated soils from the False Creek industrial site turned residential neighbourhood. In such a small park (7.14 hectares), many different environments have been constructed; coniferous forest, waterfall & fresh-water ponds, open turfgrass with deciduous trees and rocky seashore. A forest, mostly coniferous, was planted along a berm to reduce street noise from Sixth Avenue….
Submitted by Cathy Walker A Mud Bay / Boundary Bay excursion turned out to be a bit mixed. On Sunday, April 26, a fellow hiker and I met at the Mud Bay parking lot at 9:30 am and the parking lot was about half full of cars. On Colebrook Road there had been a sign that the Mud Bay parking lot had limited parking so we were pleased we had no problem getting in. The walk along Mud Bay / Boundary…
Harbourview and Lynmouth Park North Vancouver Text and Photos Submitted by Daryl Sturdy Last weekend (April 25-26) I went for a delightful, easy walk along the lower reaches of Lynn Creek to where it flows into the sea. The path is mostly wide enough to pass the 2 meter test, although at times you might have to stand off to one side or wait for people coming toward you to pass. Lynn Creek rushes over shallow bars which are subject to…
Submitted by Bengül Kurtar Last Friday morning (17 April,2020), Janet and I bicycled to Queen Elizabeth Park by practicing physical distancing rule! I had seen pink fawn lilies (Erythronium revolutum) a few years ago by accident while coming down from the top of the park. Looks like it was on March 31, 2016 as per my Flickr page: Pink fawn lily (Erythronium revolutum). After locating the pink fawn lilies on the wild side of Queen Elizabeth Park, we walked little bit: saw a lot…
Text and Photos submitted by Ian and Laurence Towson Saturday, 11 April, 2020 Following the absolutely fabulous and educating Nature Vancouver online presentation by Joan Lopez, on Thursday evening about ‘The other Killer Whales’… imagine our delight and surprise when we caught sight of two Transient Orca enjoying themselves in the Lost Lagoon! Identified by their saddle patches. Obviously an example of how nature returns to places vacated by humans… the car ban in Stanley Park is working well😊 But,…
Five of us old friends drove early to Belcarra Picnic Area parking (9am is early, isn’t it?) to beat the rush on this sunny Saturday; we met 4 people on the trail, making distancing easy. When we got back at 1:30 the parking lot was pretty full, and we skipped out plan to go up the peninsula because of crowding. Along the water to Admiralty and Burns point is an easy walk on a pleasant trail, beautiful views of water,…
Text and Photos submitted by Ron Long I have decided that I am officially suffering from cabin fever. As a photographer, getting out with my camera has typically been the way I deal with those claustrophobic feelings but now, trying to observe the “stay at home” directives that we hear multiple times every day, that option is considerably reduced. Bird feeders to the rescue. I started thinking about ways to photograph the birds coming to my feeders. The main problem…
Text and Photos submitted by Ian and Laurence Towson Our visit on 2 April 2020, to Minnekhada Regional Park was sparked by Nature Vancouver’s monthly evening program on 27 February, 2020, by Brian Titaro, on use of automated trail cameras in Metro Parks to learn how wildlife use these landscapes and how they can be better managed to reduce human-wildlife conflict and habituation. It was so beautiful. There was hardly anyone there so we were able to keep well away…
Report from Federal Review Panel Text submitted by Bev Ramey Many of you have followed this lengthy review process over the past four years and you may have heard that the Federal Environmental Review Panel released its report on March 30th. The Summary of Key Findings, three pages long, does not include recommendations, but does read fairly strongly against the project, beginning in the fourth paragraph of the summary, due to concerns for the environment, health, wildlife and First Nations….