Tag: Vancouver Area

Queen Elizabeth Park is a 130-acre municipal park located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Little Mountain (British Columbia) (elevation approximately 152 metres or 500 feet above sea level). Its surface was scarred at the turn of the twentieth century when it was quarried for its rock, which served to build Vancouver’s first roadways.

Before European settlement, the park was an old-growth forest and a spawning ground for salmon. Grey wolves, elk and bears would frequent the area. The settler population which began in earnest in the 1870s exterminated the grey wolves, elk and bears, chopped down all the old growth forest and paved over the salmon creeks. The salmon creeks that extend from Queen Elizabeth to False Creek do still exist today, but they have been paved over and are so polluted that salmon no longer use them. In 1930, the park’s floral future was somewhat revealed when the BC Tulip Association suggested the notion of transforming the quarries into sunken gardens. By the end of that decade, the site had been turned over to the Vancouver Park Board for park and recreation purposes, and was dedicated as such by King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth(the mother of Queen Elizabeth II) on their much lauded visit to Vancouver in 1939, as King and Queen of Canada. From that time, Park staff incrementally transformed the overgrown hillsides into Canada’s first civic arboretum, with a generous donation from the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. The popular quarry gardens were designed by Park Board Deputy Superintendent Bill Livingstone and were unveiled in the early 1960s.

Prentice Bloedel’s gift of $1.25 million funded the open reservoirs and built the country’s first geodesic conservatory, which is surrounded by covered walkways, lighted fountains and a sculpture, Henry Moore’s Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65. The Bloedel Floral Conservatory opened on December 6, 1969 amidst much jubilation. Its enclosed tropical garden houses 500 exotic plants and flowers and more than a hundred free-flying tropical birds.^[

Blakeburn Lagoons Park is Port Coquitlam’s newest city park which opened to the public on April 28, 2018. This site was once part of Blakeburn Ranch, a cattle ranch that thrived in the 1920s. Waste settlement ponds were built in the 1960s and decommissioned in the 1970s. Federal and city funding allowed for the site’s rehabilitation and development of the park and natural area.

Deer Lake is a lake in central Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Deer Lake is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna and features a number of walking trails. These trails connect the lake and its surrounding forests and fields to: a boat launch, picnic sites, a playground, washrooms, the Burnaby Art Gallery, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Burnaby Village Museum, and Century Gardens, as well as the surrounding community.

Port Coquitlam is a city in British Columbia, Canada. Located 27 km (17 mi) east of Vancouver, it is on the north bank of the confluence of the Fraser River and the Pitt River. Coquitlam borders it on the north, the Coquitlam River borders it on the west, and the city of Pitt Meadows lies across the Pitt River. Port Coquitlam is almost entirely bisected by Lougheed Highway. Port Coquitlam is often referred to as “PoCo.” It is Canada’s 88th-largest city by population. Port Coquitlam is not to be confused with the adjacent and larger Coquitlam

While staying in Port Coquitlam in 2019, I went on several photo shoots with Stu Lavitt. Here are some of his pictures.

Colony Farm Regional Park is a park along the Coquitlam River in the Tri-Cities area of Metro Vancouver. It is 260 hectares in size. Colony Farm was once one of the most modern and productive working farms in Canada. Today, it provides important habitat for many animal species and over 200 bird species.

Westminster Quay was a mid-1980s development to revitalize New Westminster and accompanied the development of the SkyTrain line to Vancouver. In addition to a large public market and a 2.5-diamond-rated hotel, The Inn at the Quay, a large condominium tower and townhouse complex was built, accessed from the older Columbia Street area of downtown by an overpass. The impetus provided by this project has spilled over onto the inland side of the rail tracks, with new tower developments focusing on the area southwest of 8th Street (the area known formerly as “the Swamp” and Chinatown). As of July 2007, the Quay’s commercial component had noticeably decreased, with many vacancies, compared to the much more active Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. Responding to the decrease of business, the ownership group closed the Westminster Quay Market for renovations. The market re-opened as The River Market in September 2010 with Donald’s Market as the main anchor.

Pitt Lake is the second-largest lake in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. About 53.5 square kilometres in area, it is about 25 km long and about 4.5 km wide at its widest. It is one of the world’s relatively few tidal lakes, and among the largest. In Pitt Lake, there is on average a three foot tide range; thus Pitt Lake is separated from sea level and tidal waters during most hours of each day during the 15 foot tide cycle of the Pitt River and Strait of Georgia estuary immediately downstream.^[3] The lake’s southern tip is 20 km upstream from The Pitt River confluence with the Fraser River and is 40 km east of DowntownVancouver.

Mundy Park at 176 hectares (435 acres), is the largest park in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The park has many walking trails that pass the park’s two lakes – Mundy Lake and Lost Lake. There are also sports fields, a lacrosse box, an outdoor swimming pool, disc golf area, picnic area, and playground.

The Coquitlam Reds of the B.C. Premier Baseball League play their home games at Mundy Park.

Scenes from the 2006 Danny DeVito / Matthew Broderick film Deck the Halls were shot at Mundy Park.

There a wide variety of wildlife in Mundy Park, including black bears, deer, raccoons, ducks, geese, swans, and a large variety of other birds. Some endangered plants are also to be found at Mundy Park.

Mundy Park was originally named ‘Munday Park’ after George Munday, who originally bought the land. The reason for the changed name is unknown.