English Bay Beach has little parking; Sunset has quite a bit. In English Bay, the bike path is back on the street, far from the ocean; in Sunset it integrates into the park (or did in pre-pandemic times), getting close to the water and adding to the liveliness. Sunset has a small off-leash dog area; English Bay does not. English Bay has geese; Sunset Beach has a ball hockey court. Sunset Beach has the giant engagement ring sculpture and the giant steel arc, English Bay has a Cactus Club. 

We’re being uncharitable for effect; English Bay ultimately is a darn fine park, has accessible Mobi-Mats, and that fun slide into the water. And neither park has much for kids if they don’t enjoy the beach. 

But Sunset Beach feels like a community asset, one fully formed — the fact it’s a downtown beach with amazing views is part of its selling point, not its entire reason for existing. 

It doesn’t have the tourist attention of English, the summer crowds of Kits, the pure beach vibes of Spanish Banks. 

It doesn’t matter — Sunset is great.

Other beach parks usually have some grassy areas or playgrounds, providing some alternatives if some members of your party are less inclined to romp through the sand. Spanish Banks really has neither — the only additional amenities are an off-leash dog area, volleyball courts, picnic tables, a concession stand and washrooms. 

Which is all good, but limits its potential for some folks. Are you in a group with five beach bums with a desire for some volleyball and a BBQ? Spanish Banks is amazing. Have a family where some kids want a playground and others prefer soccer? Its magic is wasted. 

But there is still plenty of magic, plenty of kiteboarders, plenty of people out on high tide, plenty of people enjoying all Spanish Banks has to offer.

And it’s worth noting that the expanse of flat nothingness was fought for tooth and nail back in the day — a few proposals for airports in the area were rejected after community outcry, as was a planetarium and tower. 

So many of Vancouver’s fights are about whether to build or preserve, whether the benefits of the fancy world-class proposal outweigh the simpler pleasures already in place, the balance shifting slightly with every decade and every proposal.   

It’s fair to say that on Spanish Banks, they got it right.  

That’s a lot of stuff! More than any other park in the city except Stanley! One way of demonstrating this is by saying Memorial Park South is Vancouver’s only park with washrooms, a cricket pitch and a field hockey pitch. It’s also the only park in the city with baseball fields, a ball hockey court and a running track. Or the only one with lighted fields, picnic sites with a BBQ, and a place for lacrosse. 

If all Memorial South had was endless variety, it would be good enough. But that space means it’s a gathering ground for a large number of events from Vancouver’s diverse eastside communities, and the pond and forest area provide some quiet reprise. The road bisecting half the park leads to a cenotaph that remembers those who served in the war, and it provides symmetry to the space (not to mention more parking in an area less served by transit).

In short, it’s a well laid out park, lacking in pretty much nothing (except a basketball court), and is frequented by people of all ages. 

There is room to quibble: the playground appears to be a remnant from a time in the 1980s where the city put up a single wooden structure with slides on top of some gravelly sand and called it a day. And the southeast corner of basic grass on the other side of the forest seems weirdly forgotten.

Overall though, Memorial Park South shows that a sports-focused park can be more than a few fields and a washroom.

Sometimes much more. 

Well guess what? It works. The park is now packed. And Pandora is now the model of what an inland community park should be. 

Nothing about the park is absolutely amazing or over the top — there are spray parks in Vancouver where the water goes higher, and more elaborate gardens and off-leash dog parks in other parts of the city.

But it’s all done with care in Pandora, from the tables and chairs dotting each area, to the slopes and trees separating each part, to the paths everywhere. Even something as simple as putting the basketball court next to the tennis area on an angle, making the centre of the park a little less blocky, helps. 

On a clear day there’s a view of downtown, and there’s enough room between Nanaimo Street and the main attractions in the park that noise isn’t a particular problem. 

It’s not a destination park, but doesn’t try to be. Pandora is an example of what a great neighbourhood park in 2020 can look like, and we look forward to more renovations like it in the future. 

Sanctuary: A large pond/small lake in the southwest corner of Hastings, built at the end of the 20th century. It’s sufficiently removed from the rest of the park, with wooded trails surrounding it, and after two decades of use it doesn’t feel too manufactured (even though, you know, the entire area is). There are docks that let you get closer to the water, a number of smartly designed sitting areas, and even some fish available for catching. It’s not essential, and a little too removed from the rest of the park, but certainly nice for locals to have.

Empire Fields: The big sports and playground area. One part has lighted turf fields, a bike park, and the Landy and Bannister statue commemorating the Miracle Mile at 1954 British Empire games (which you’re just going to have to accept was a big deal for Vancouver’s sense of ego at the time). The other part is called Slidey Slides Park (yes, that’s the real name) with tall steep slides and ample climbing equipment for older kids, including one horizontal climbing bridge that leads directly to a big climbing triangle. Both the sports fields and playground are arguably top 10 facilities of their type in the city — but being so close to Highway 1 and Hastings Street means there’s a constant din of noise, and there’s not exactly a lot to do in the immediate area unless you have extra money for Playland.  

Each of these areas is lovely, and if we were scoring Vancouver’s parks without the design metric, Hastings would rank 2nd. But design matters, and combined Hastings’ individual areas don’t link up at all unless you’re making a concerted effort to see all parts of the park. 

And why would you? The rides in Playland, slides in Slidey Slide Park, slot machines at the race track and fish in the Sanctuary have no real theme connecting them. 

Except for the fact that they’re all part of the evolution of Hastings — and in their own way, part of the evolution of Vancouver. 

Oh yeah, there’s also *that* view, the towers of downtown closer than any of the other west side beaches, the curved nature of the park providing interesting looks to the west, north and east. 

It’s all immensely appealing, though the feeling can sour if you start to think about how the land became a beach in the first place, and the paradox between how it came to be and who it is named for. And if you’re someone who prefers a more natural, quiet feel, Kits provides pretty much the exact opposite.

At the end of the day though, there’s so much to do and so much to like about Kits. 

Have a tolerance for crowds, and enjoy the most beach in the most city.

Did we mention that beachy area? It’s a way to enjoy some sand without being crowded, in a place where stunning sunsets and all manner of boats are both common sights.  

Plus, there’s plenty of educational display boards and equipment throughout the park (including a giant old-timey anchor), giving a sense of the industrial history in the area. And it’s one of the few places in the city where you can reserve picnic tables. 

When it opened in 1988, The Province journalist Tony Eberts wrote that “Fraser River Park seems likely to become one of the city’s favourite outdoor destinations.”

That didn’t really happen — in a city with dozens of waterfront areas open to the public, Fraser River Park is ultimately a little too removed from the rest of Vancouver, tucked as it is in the far southwest, and it’s a bit difficult to get to if you don’t have a car.   

Which means if you do visit, you’ll get that distinct sense of discovering a hidden treasure, the type you’ll come back to anytime you want a peaceful retreat from the city within its own borders. 

But there’s also the pond and marshy area further south, and a heavily treed area with plenty of trails. There’s concessions at one end of the park and a pier that extends decently far into the ocean at the other.

The history of Jericho is also full of little local signifiers as well: its name a likely butchering of “Jerry’s Cove”, named for a logging manager in the area, its docks once home to the Royal Canadian Air Force and a United Nations conference on urbanism in the 1970s. After Vancouver purchased most of the land in 1969, there was a long debate on whether it would be parkland or housing. 

All very Vancouver things, in ways loud and quiet. All in a convenient location to get to. All in all, a great park. 

There’s also multiple washrooms and multiple playgrounds (the newer one is excellent, with a large climbing dome, disc swing, and covered wooden playhouses among the attractions). There’s also multiple large covered areas, a ball hockey court, and a community centre.

It’s the lake that holds it all together though. Aside from giving the park a clear focal point and Instagram setpiece, it provides a physical anchor to the design — all other aspects can flow naturally around the water, giving an internal route to exploring Trout Lake that makes it a wonderful place to visit even if you aren’t particularly doing anything. 

Then there’s the little extra touches that make it truly magical: the farmers market in the summer (probably the best in the city), the off-leash dog beach on the north side, the periodic bands playing, the winter wonderland Trout Lake turns into on the rare occasion it can be skated on. 

It’s why we deliberately travelled around Vancouver neighbourhood by neighbourhood in a path that would make Stanley the last place we visited, just to make sure our preconceived notions were fair. 

Yes, it’s the best park in the city. No, nothing comes close.

If anything, Vancouverites take it for granted given how central it is, how often people go there for any number of things, and how much Stanley Park’s values permeate Vancouver’s design aesthetic as a whole. 

Let’s quickly go through the main parts of the park — not that it needs it, and keeping in mind there are dozens of guides about the park you could individually read. Because while some people might do a guided tour or spend their entire time in Stanley randomly ambling around, there are seven specific aspects of the park that people visit in isolation, and they are each worth a short description.

Lagoon Lake/Southern Area: The area of Stanley Park south of Lagoon Drive and west of the highway is really the neighbourhood park for the West End, with tennis courts, a pitch and putt golf course, the Rhododendron Garden, lawn bowling area and brewery all jammed together. Beside it is the beautiful Lagoon Lake, and a languid path circling it. 

This part is like 10% of all of Stanley Park, and probably the most rudimentary. By itself, this could be a top 50 park in the city, full of things to do and interesting wildlife.

Lumberman’s Arch/Centre Area: The area between the trails and Brockton Point is arguably the most touristy and commercial area of the park: it’s where the miniature train and horses take off from, where the multiple rose gardens are situated, and where the plaque of Lord Stanley stands.

But it’s also a great community park in its own right, with multiple playgrounds (including a truly inspired wooden castle structure near Lumberman’s Arch), a fantastic water park right on the seawall, and a number of options for walks that pass by several memorials. 

Again, take this part of Stanley and put it anywhere in the city, and it’s a huge attraction unto itself, and probably makes Queen Elizabeth Park seem incredibly marginal. 

This is another 10% of Stanley.

Brockton Point: This is where the rugby pavilion is, where the sports fields are, and where tourists flock to the totem poles. It’s probably the purest expression of the city’s very British, very aspirational middle-class ethos in much of its early history.

And while the totem poles are still huge tourist magnets, they’re a little jarring in the context of a park that is figuring out how to actively reconcile its reality as one of Vancouver’s most prominent examples of Indigenous displacement without compensation. 

This part of the park is *almost* a bit generic, until you remember that it’s right on the eastern edge of the Seawall, and with it some of the most iconic views and pieces of art in Vancouver. 

Prospect Point: Probably the only place in Stanley Park you could actively label a tourist trap, Prospect is a car-centred area just west of Lions Gate Bridge with a restaurant and a lookout point. It’s extremely nice, with a view of West Vancouver and English Bay that is fairly unique, but that’s about all the area has to offer. Across the street, there’s a field with a basic playground and covered seating.

Third Beach: It seems unfair to have the beach with possibly the best sand in the city as sort of a throwaway area on the far west side of Stanley, but there is Third Beach, with ample parking, a restaurant and concession stand, and a wonderfully secluded feel, the cliffs of the park rising on both sides. 

Second Beach: But we haven’t even gotten to the best “zone” of Stanley, which is the area in and around Second Beach, which by itself could have a claim as the best park in the city. There’s two more playgrounds (including one with a vintage firetruck), a basketball court, large field where movies play during the summer, and a huge outdoor pool that’s perfect for kids. On top of the hill, there’s a big covered patio, and a memorial to the Air India bombing. Below is the beach — there’s pretty good sand, enough area that it’s not too busy, and views of False Creek. 

Trails/Seawall: Of course, surrounding and connecting all this is a series of trails and the seawall, providing areas for people to walk, jog and cycle in unmatched beauty, either amongst old-growth trees or between the water and cliffs. Beaver Lake and the Siwash Rock are landmarks well worth checking out, but there’s enough variety in the paths that you could explore every day for a week and still find new routes and points of interest. 

So it’s a pretty good park.

You can do pretty much any sport in Stanley except perhaps ball hockey, there are any number of ways to get around the park, and you could fill up a book writing about all its history and buildings and monuments.  

It did get *just* 39 out of 40 points on our score, and the one place where people gave less than perfect scores was typically for its design: some believe Stanley is just a little too car-centred, or a little too difficult to get around if you get a bit lost. With a part so vast and with relatively few roads, transportation in the park will always be a source of debate.

And it was a huge battle in 2020 in 2021 and 2022, as people angrily debated the merits of temporary internal routing of roads in Stanley Park during a pandemic.  

From the outside, in a time of so much suffering, it probably looked a tad hyperbolic. 

But Stanley Park means so much to Vancouverites, and is so ingrained in people’s identity with this city, that it’s often the centre of huge cultural flashpoints. 

Stanley Park is a park; but it’s also a representation of the city that it’s in: from its beauty, to its focus on greens and blues and trees and oceans, to all the debates, big and small, over its future and what those decisions say about us. 

It’s what makes the park iconic. And it’s what makes the park Vancouver.