Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC

Stanley Park, in Vancouver, British Columbia, is remarkable for its size (1,000 acres), its foliage and its extensive walking/jogging trails.  It is situated on a peninsula and nearly surrounded by English Bay and Vancouver Harbor.  A circular drive along its waterfront allows drivers, bikers, roller skaters, and walkers to mingle freely, and safely along specified pathways, in a serene environment at the edge of a major metropolitan city.  Like Hong Kong, Vancouver's skyscrapers rise like an impenetrable wall to the south.  Yet, Stanley Park gives the city's residents an escape to the forest.

Anyone living in the city would be hard pressed to avoid a daily stroll or ride along its paths.  The park feels safe and inviting.  Were it not for the $1000/square foot real estate price for entry into this city, I could live within walking distance of the park in a heartbeat.  Even the occasional tram or bus load of passing tourists, from the city or from the cruise ships anchored in Vancouver Harbor, don't detract from the allure of this place.  The movie industry also covets the mystique of this place.

Along the route of our travel through the park, we stopped for a view of Native North American art rendered in the form of totem poles.  These hold a particular fascination for Jimmy, who possesses an array of wood carving tools, and a desire to duplicate one of the totem poles.  Nearby this display are lawn bowling greens, and a broad expanse of grass that begs for a soccer match or a game of fetch with one's dog.

For thousands of years the park was inhabited by indigenous peoples.  Beginning in 1858, the land was re-occupied by British colonists in search of gold in the Fraser Canyon.  When the city of Vancouver was incorporated in 1886, the park was officially created.  This act preserved around half a million trees, hundreds of years old, with some standing as tall as two hundred and fifty feet!  The only danger the trees have faced in the last one hundred years have been three serious winter storms blowing in across English Bay that toppled many.  Wise-minded guardians of the park have replaced them.

Now take a stroll through Stanley Park with us...

    

Queen Elizabeth Park

We made a stop at Queen Elizabeth Park located along our route into downtown Vancouver today before checking into our hotel.  Like Butchart Gardens, this municipal park has been reclaimed from the overgrown hillsides of a rock quarry once used for building the city's first roadways in the early 1900s.  Before the arrival of Europeans, this site was an old growth forest, and home to gray wolves, elk and bears with a salmon stream running through it.  None of these creatures are found there today, nor is the old growth forest.

 
Finding ourselves with some time available for exploration, our quest was to see how this site compared with our favorite park in Victoria-Butchart Gardens.  The answer is, only to some degree.  The meticulous maintenance of Butchart Gardens with its wide variety of plants outshines this municipal park, but it is evident that Queen Elizabeth Park holds its own in popularity.  The paths were well populated with visitors.  There is no entrance fee which is a plus.

The paths wind up and down through several garden areas and through several stands of trees.  A small waterfall and some ponds adorn the park grounds creating several attractive photo sites.  There are expansive views of downtown Vancouver with its surrounding mountain ranges near the park's restaurant.  A few steps away is the Bloedel Floral Conservatory with its exotic plants, flowers and tropical birds.  We enjoyed a bronze statue of a photographer with his three subjects situated between these two buildings, then watched a child play in a water fountain nearby.  A bride and groom held our attention as their real life photographer took pictures of them in the lower gardens.

Notably, the surrounding blocks of homes near the park are being bought up and demolished.  New apartment buildings are rising in their footprints.  It is strange to pass block after block of boarded up homes awaiting their demise.  Even more amazing are the "Sold Out" signs pasted across each development's signage.  Vancouver is in demand.  Construction is booming both here and downtown.  Apartment or condominium living is becoming the norm.  In a very short period of time, the older homes with their tree adorned yards will be gone, just like the old growth forest of Queen Elizabeth Park.  

Spring at Butchart Gardens-Victoria BC

There are not enough words to describe how beautiful Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, can be in the spring.  Though we were probably a week or two early based upon the lengthy and cold winter we've experienced, the flowers were divine.  With this trip, we have experienced three of the four seasons in Victoria.  Now, without further delay, is a visual walk through Butchart Gardens:

 

Canada is 150 years old in 2017 and the gardens are over one hundred years old.  The entrance leads past the cafe (which has yummy food) and a sign that is decorated by season with flowers.

We were on Vancouver Island to celebrate Jim's daughter's fiftieth birthday.  She had never been to Butchart.  What a wonderful reason to go!  Plus it was sunny when we arrived.  A blessing for an outdoor attraction and the first sunny day we have seen in quite some time.  Divine intervention!

There is sort of a looping walk throughout the park.  The sidewalk winds from the entrance past beds of flowers like these pink, blue and white examples on the left, along a path that climbs up to a fir covered knoll overlooking the original limestone quarry that existed here before this became a garden.

There is a small log cabin room with a window that overlooks the quarry (below.)  It yields a commanding view of the gardens lining the walls and floor of the old digging grounds.

Now it is hard to imagine what the quarry must have looked like from the outlines you can still discern of it.

There were cherry trees in bloom, daffodils and tulips in abundance, and fountains to delight the child in all of us.  Everything in the garden seemed to be surging forth anew exhuding the sheer joy of life.  Who could not believe in the eternity of things in the face of such a display?    

 

Ponds evoked the feeling of looking at a Claude Monet painting.  A deer family (comprised of carefully pruned plants) seemed real while grazing upon the newly green grass below our path.

It would be possible to take a thousand photos on the first loop of the tour alone.  And yet there was more...  

This statue of a young woman in awe of what is before her is one of my favorites in the park.  What a view she has 365 days a year.  But who needs statues when there are water fountains and gazing balls to entrance you?  This adorable child could hardly be enticed to continue further along our path.  Within the glass mirror-like ball, we are reflected as we watch with her mother.

Pansies are a symbol of remembrance.  Do you suppose she will remember them or the ball?  I'll bet on the latter!  There is a Chinese dragon fountain and a Japanese Garden within Butchart Garden. Both are intriguing.  I believe my fascination is with the Japanese Garden as it winds down to the waterfront and a bay.  There is a new waterfall statue of a tiny dragon holding a glass ball that I'd like for my garden but I doubt they'd let me have it.

Finally, there are the Italian Gardens near the original home.  These were the start of the whole endeavor.  If I were a billionaire, I'd buy this place.  I'd still let the public come and visit, but I'd save one day a week for myself.  A day to wander through, and enjoy every special spot within the park, like the wonderful woman who had the vision to begin this place-one potted flower or plant at a time.  It proves that no matter how tiny, or how big you dream, one step at a time (or in this case one plant at a time) can make a difference for the millions that follow along behind you.