Downtown Vancouver Favourites: Stanley Park

I lived in Vancouver for nine years before moving to the East Coast. My husband was born and raised in Montreal but lived in Vancouver with me for almost four years during the early part of our marriage. I consider Vancouver as my home city in Canada and for my husband, it is his second home. Now, we have a new home in Ottawa.

Our son was born in Ottawa and frequently visits Montreal with us. However, Vancouver, for him, is something unfamiliar and far away.

When we took him there when he was a still a toddler, we made sure that we brought him to some of our favourite places. On some trips, it was just the three of us, and on some, with my family in Vancouver.

I am sure that our son will not remember everything, but there will be plenty of opportunities to go back and rediscover the city I that I have come to love (and greatly miss).

We visited the mountain resort in Whistler and falls in Squamish, hiked and crossed hanging bridges in Capilano and Lynn Valley in Vancouver’s North Shore, went on rides and walked along the lake in Chilliwack, and wandered around a park in Abbotsford.

In downtown Vancouver, we brought him to kid-friendly attractions, along with his second cousins, and we, the adults, got the chance to once again enjoy these places we had overlooked for years. We realized you can never be too old for these things.

Stanley Park

Stanley Park is Vancouver’s first, largest (at 405 hectares), and most beloved urban park of the city. It is actually more than a park, for it has everything - from forested trails to beaches (it has three beaches) and heated outdoor pools; from a nature house, where you can learn more about native plants and wildlife through interactive displays, to an amazing aquarium; from an active marina with regal boats and yachts to a mini-putt haven; from a brewery to a teahouse with a garden, from cafés and ice cream parlours to food carts and concession stands offering iconic street food.

On one fine afternoon, we drove our car around, following the Stanley Park Drive on a loop to enjoy the panoramic views of the city skyline, the snow-dusted North Shore Mountains, and the boats buzzing across the Burrard inlet.

We checked out the Brockton Point Lighthouse, looked at the Girl in a Wetsuit statue (Vancouver’s playful local take on Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid Statue), then stopped at Prospect Point for some ice cream. While admiring the Lions Gate Bridge from that vantage point, we told our son about the infamous pranks that University of British Columbia engineering students pull every year on that bridge, including hanging the shell of a red Volkswagen beetle from the bottom, as well as wiring the bridge lights to blink "UBC Engineers" in Morse code.

We spent some time at the Second Beach at the southwest end of the park just to walk along the sandy shoreline and for our son to spend a little bit of time at the playground. We did not swim and it was not on schedule that afternoon anyway.

Then, we took him to the Rose Garden to admire the flowers, but he showed little interest. The next stop was Shakespeare’s Garden to look at his monument and the collection of trees in the arboretum. These are the trees mentioned in his plays and poems. This was more interesting for him because the trees have been affixed with plaques that display the appropriate quotes. For some reason, he had fun while we read them aloud (with feelings!) And of course, we went to see the Rock Garden, created by master gardener John Montgomery from unwanted boulders excavated for the adjacent park pavilion.

We told our son that my cousin and my husband’s best friend (who are his godparents) had their wedding reception at The Teahouse nearby, and we had our pictorial in these gardens. I was the Matron of Honour, and my husband was the Best Man. And I should mention that it was my husband that introduced them to each other.

My favourite feature of Stanley Park are the totem poles at Brockton Point. Totem poles are unique to the northwest coast of B.C. and lower Alaska, and these are one of the elements that I miss in the East Coast. I find them to be such spectacular symbols of the Indigenous Peoples and such a creative way to tell their stories.

The collection, one of B.C.’s most visited tourist attractions, represent different Indigenous Nations. They were carved from western red cedar, and each carving tells of a real or mythical event. The eagle represents the kingdom of the air.  The whale represents the lordship of the sea.  The wolf represents the wisdom of the land. The frog represents the transitional link between land and sea.

The nine totem poles erected on this park are some of the most beautiful and unique ones that I have seen.

• Thunderbird House Post Totem Pole – distinct-looking with its open wings; it is a replica of the house post carved by Kwakwaka'wakw artist Charlie James in the early 1900s (A carved house post is used to support the huge roof beams of a house.)

• Oscar Maltipi Totem Pole - the dark coloured one featuring animals and supernatural beings who helped found family lineages; at its top is the Thunderbird and at the bottom is the killer whale.

• Chief Skedans Mortuary Totem Pole - the only pole of its kind at the park; an older version of this pole was raised in the Haida village of Skidgate in 1870; it honours the Raven Chief of Skedans and depicts the Chief's hereditary crests; the two tiny figures in the bear's ears represent the Chief's daughter and son-in-law who erected the pole and gave a potlach for the Chief's memorial; the rectangle board at the top of the original pole covered a cavity that held the chief's remains; Haida artist Bill Reid with assistant Werner True, carved this new pole in 1964; Don Yeomans recarved the top moon face in 1998.

• Chief Wakas Totem Pole – another unique totem pole; it represents the talking stick (talking sticks are held by people making important speeches) that belonged to Chief Wakas and the characters in an Owikeno story that he used to tell

• Rose Cole Yelton Memorial Totem Pole - honours Rose Cole, the last surviving resident of the Brockton community, and all those who lived in Stanley Park

• Kakaso'Las Totem Pole - was carved by Ellen Neel, who was a pioneer carver and the first woman to become a Northwest Coast carver

• Beaver Crest Totem Pole – a unique pole because of its colour and shape; it is not painted in bright colours and the main body is circular like the original log it was carved from; it doesn't have wings or beaks or other items protruding from it as many of the other totem poles do, but the carvings are very intricate and tells the story of the Nisga'a family Tait

• Ga'akstalas Totem Pole - one of the most colourful and intricately carved totem poles at the park; it depicts many legendary people, such as Red Cedar bark man (an ancestor who survived the Great Flood and gave the people the first canoe), and animals such as the killer whale, raven, and grizzly bear

• Sky Chief Totem Pole - a colourful pole depicting many animals such as a kingfisher, killer whale, snake, and wolf

  
  

Interestingly, most of the totem poles are not actually from the Vancouver area. They are all from British Columbia though. Except for the newer local art pieces, most are also replicas of the originals. Four of the totems are from Alert Bay on Vancouver Island. Others are from Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands) and River’s Inlet (on B.C.’s west coast close to halfway up the province). The newest pole is the only one made by a Vancouver-area artist. It’s by Robert Yelton of the Squamish Nation and set up in Stanley Park in 2009.

Prior to our visit, our young son had only every seen a small version of totem poles, in the form of fridge magnets and paperweights that I brought to Ottawa from Vancouver. Seeing the real ones up close and personal made him say, “Wow!” a few times in a row.