The hidden gems of Stanley Park

You can't lock these priceless treasures away in a museum: Stanley Park boasts dozens of monuments, memorials and art throughout its 1,000 acres.

City of Vancouver archives

You can't lock these priceless treasures away in a museum: Stanley Park boasts dozens of monuments, memorials and art throughout its 1,000 acres. In fact, the collection is so large, the park board has banned the erection of any further memorials to avoid saturation.

As such, Cycle City's art history tour guide Dan Hayes could conduct a lengthy public art tour just in Stanley Park alone, but he highlighted three pieces for us, notable for their unorthodox history:

Queen Victoria Memorial Fountain (1905)

Bronze and granite (pictured, above). Located across from Vancouver Rowing Club. Rendered obsolete and hard-to-access in the creation of the Lions Gate Bridge roadway. Designed by James Blomfield (creator of Vancouvers Coat of Arms). Made from the same batch of granite as the Victory Square Cenotaph. Its kind of cool how you have this serious piece of public art, but because of some rerouting, it gets totally lost.

Sideways Tree (post-2006)

Located along the Stanley Park Causeway. Placed here after the windstorm that hit Stanley Park, its an example of how an object gets recontextualized and therefore becomes art. Its also really successful because people are always interacting with this piece. All it is is this oddly shaped tree stuck on its side."

Two Spirits (mid-1990s)

Tucked away, this beautiful but unauthorized sculpture (pictured, below) is found just west of the crossroads of trails that enter into Stanley Park from the swimming pool located at Second Beach. The sculpture was chiseled into a stump that remains from one the large trees in the area. For a piece of amateur, guerrilla art, I think its pretty impressive.