More than anything, China Creek South is known for its skateboard bowls.

Opened in 1979, the pair right in the middle of the park look fairly generic today, but were the first in the city to be installed and the third public ones in all of Canada, the other two built on the North Shore the previous two years.

As such, it became a hub for the culture through thick and thin, being saved several times from proposed removal, including in 2006 when a park board planner said “the residents … are saying the noise is not acceptable anymore.”

Depressing as that sentence may be, the bowls were saved and an additional playground was installed. Today the park is quite lovely for everyone, with a little community garden, lots of gentle slopes and trails, with noise from Clark Drive and the lack of a real sense of purpose to its eastern half the only real drawbacks. 

Not a bad legacy, for something that started as a $35,000 investment on an old dump site.