More than 10 per cent of Vancouver’s parks are either West End miniparks, Wall Street pocket parks or Point Grey pocket parks, and I promise we are almost through all of them, entertaining as it may be to read once again about a small patch of land with good views and not much else. 

Margaret Pigott Park, named for a longtime park advocate in the city, is one of the best. This is mostly due to the fact the park is larger than most of the pocket parks, taking up the equivalent of two houses, giving more room for people to stretch out or have a nice lunch.

But a large tree right in the middle also gives some pleasant ambiance, as do the six benches providing the sorts of views that help surrounding homes sell for 10 million dollars or more. 

If this sounds slightly underwhelming, that’s because it is: outside of the nice view from the top of the main park and a few sports leagues, Falaise is more a melange of amenities — with a distinct lack of shade or modern flourishes — than a place to go to, with the long slope that dominates the design massively underused outside the three days of year where snow makes it fantastic for tobogganing. 

While a park is always appreciated is appreciated — especially for the dogs, as nearly all parts of the park are off-leash — the design and lack of modern frills makes it hard to recommend. 

One gives higher marks to modest parks that achieve their purpose than larger ones that don’t, which is why little MacDonald comes in here. 

A simple city block park at 44th Avenue one block east of Main, MacDonald has a large tennis court and an expansive if aged playground. 

But the playground’s design is good — a wooden structure with multiple slides, along with devices that let kids propel themselves from one end of the playground to the other — and the many trees give a lovely neighbourhood feel, particularly in the heat of summer. 

It’s been an unassuming neighbourhood park for decades, but it comes together nicely as a simple place where people of all ages can congregate, so our complaints are minimal. 

The area around the Collingwood neighbourhood is notable for a number of reasons: not only is it one of the few places in the southeast quadrant of the city dominated by apartment complexes, but the parks in the area are all close together, yet separated for distinct purposes. 

Of the three within a block of one another , Melbourne is the “basketball and tennis park”, with both courts in excellent shape. There’s a small grassy field in front of both facilities, and a walking path separating the two sides, and it all works perfectly fine in its minimal space. 

(A side note for those keeping score at home — you might notice it’s only the second time in the first 100 or so parks we’ve mentioned a basketball court. The reason is simple: the city’s basketball courts are generally packed, and when lots of people are in a park, they become a more enjoyable place; a place we’re inclined to say “hey, this is meeting the needs of the community, and thus is a good park!”)

And basketball courts do that, because it’s an incredibly popular sport these days, much more so than, say, baseball or tennis, for which many Vancouver parks are geared towards. 

That’s mostly a reflection of the fact Vancouver was settled in 1880, not the 1980s. Still, it’s worth noting, in the broad survey we’re attempting to display here.

A strange, quasi-extension of Stanley Park along the north side of Georgia, Devonian Harbour is dominated by…a parking lot, which is generally a less than ideal sign for the vibrancy of a park as a whole. 

And while Devonian Harbour has an adequate off-leash dog park, an understated AIDS memorial, and two very interesting sculptures to look at (one called “Aerodynamic Forms In Space”, the other “Solo”), it serves less as its own sense of place and more as a pleasant introduction to Stanley Park.

Perhaps unsurprising, as the park came as a result of activism by the “Save the Entrance to Stanley Park Committee”, which fought to preserve the land as an extension of Stanley when the rest of Coal Harbour was being developed. 

And when all is said and done, you can’t be upset at a little more public space from where one can enjoy one of the most iconic urban parks in the world. 

Likely the only park in all of Metro Vancouver named for a boys band leader (Kitislano’s Arthur Delamont), the backstory of Delamont is interesting in itself — the city purchased a number of properties in the area, hoping to build a six-lane mini-highway through the area, but when neighbourhood backlash changed their mind, the properties were turned into green space. 

Aside from the backstory and the shape (essentially two small connected triangles, divided by the Arbutus Greenway as it turns right), Delamont is a fairly normal small park with a basic playground.

That’s how most of our team viewed it, but a wonderful thing about parks is they can speak to us in different ways. In this case, one of our members had wildly positive things to say about Delamont. Specifically, the way the two parts of the park are separated.  

Let’s start by acknowledging that as a park, or even a public space, Victory Square is somewhat limited. 

It’s essentially another one of Vancouver’s extended triangle traffic medians, except this one is on a giant hill and is half-grass, half-cement. This makes group hangs hard, it makes chilling there for more than thirty minutes hard, it makes the park somewhat underutilized the 364 days a year it isn’t the centrepiece for Remembrance Day. 

But that’s secondary to the reason Victory Square matters, which is as a public plaza to remember and honour those that served. And in that measure, Victory Square acquits itself well. 

A mix of elements that don’t quite come together, Granville Loop is on the south end of the Granville Bridge, meaning there’s a constant blaring of noise from cars and buses passing by at high speeds. 

There’s a couple tennis courts, an adequate park for small children, and a brutalism-inspired water structure that in non-pandemic times is fun for kids and adults alike to walk through. 

Interestingly, the west side of the park connected by a quasi-tunnel is not technically a park; which has led to fears from residents that it could be developed in the future. For now though, the entire area functions more as a small green space for the nearby apartments and townhomes than a true park, but works well enough for that purpose.