Stanley Park is the largest city park and one of the main attractions in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The park is located on a peninsula, washed by the waters of Vancouver Harbour and English Bay and bordered by downtown Vancouver. Stanley Park is also the third largest urban park in North America and attracts millions of tourists each year.
Before British Columbia was colonized by the British, the area of present-day Stanley Park and its surroundings were inhabited for thousands of years by so-called indigenous peoples. In 1857 the Fraser River gold rush attracted thousands of artisanal miners to the area, who established small settlements. In 1867 the English sailor Edward Stump opened a sawmill around which the settlement of Gastown, renamed Granville in 1870, was formed. In 1886 Granville became a city and got its present name – Vancouver, and in September 1888 the grand opening of the city’s first park – Stanley Park – took place. The park was named in honor of Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, the 6th Governor General of Canada.
Stanley Park is a huge green oasis of over 400 hectares with many convenient footpaths and forest paths, picturesque lakes and gardens, excellent beaches, children’s playgrounds and sports grounds, a miniature railroad, tennis courts, a golf course, outdoor summer theater, etc. Most of the park, as at the end of the 19th century, is a dense forest (some trees are over 70 meters high and up to two hundred years old).
In the park you will see a large number of various monuments, statues and sculptures (including the Japanese Canadian War Memorial, statues of Sir Stanley, the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, Olympic runner Henry Jerome and a sculpture known as “the girl in the wetsuit” by Hungarian sculptor Elek Imridi) and an interesting collection of Indian totems. A pedestrian promenade stretches along the perimeter of the park, running along the top of the causeway, a favourite spot of Vancouver residents and visitors. There’s a bike lane for cyclists, but it’s only allowed to go counterclockwise.
The park is also home to the famous Vancouver Aquarium, which is not only one of the best aquariums in the world, but also one of the largest centers for marine research, conservation and rehabilitation of marine life.