Inventing nature's past: An environmental history of Stanley Park

Stanley Park, a peninsula located directly adjacent to downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, is one of the largest urban parks in Canada. A powerful narrative, which characterizes this park as a preserved portion of a once vast Northwest Coast coniferous forest spared from the ecological destruction of urbanization, dominates the popular perception of nature in the park. Since its creation in 1887 people have repeatedly described the park as "primeval," "virginal wilderness," and "centuries-old." This narrative is based on an imagined version of the park's natural history. Stanley Park encompasses an ever-changing environment that has never been free from human and non-human disturbance. For thousands of years the park's landscape has been a product of a confluence of natural and cultural forces from its use as a Native village prior to European colonization to its transformation into an urban park.;The popular perception that nature in Stanley Park is an ancient pristine wilderness is illusory. The park has become a symbol of an imagined past, a static portrait of a pre-colonial wilderness that never existed. It is a fantasy vision of the peninsula's natural history. That vision elides the confluence of natural and cultural forces that have transformed the landscape for centuries. Yet this myth of nature's past persists. This dissertation argues that this perception of the park is a result of a dialectical relationship between public expectations of idealized wilderness and Vancouver Park Board landscape policies that reinforce the image of the park as an ancient forest. Park authorities have sought to modify the peninsula in relation to complementary and countervailing natural agents in order to produce an idealized park landscape, which surreptitiously erases evidence of natural and artificial disturbance. In doing so, these policies reshape public memory and popular perceptions of nature in Stanley Park. To understand this historical process, this dissertation explores the complex interrelationship of nature, history, and memory in one of the most widely renowned parks in Canada.;The park has undergone numerous transformations. Humans have lived in the park for millennia, utilizing the resources of both the terrestrial and marine environments. European colonization altered human relations with the rest of nature as industrial logging took hold on Burrard Inlet. The peninsula was both selectively logged during the mid-nineteenth century and was used for cattle grazing and settlement. It was not until the 1880s that the first city council considered reserving this land for a city park. Even after the creation of the park, humans have had a profound impact on the physical environment. Numerous park improvement projects, over the course of the twentieth century, have reshaped nature to produce a wholly different landscape.