The Lost lagoon

4 May 2017

Back where we started, at the beginning of the Cathedral trail, we turned towards the Lost Lagoon. The name alone made it worth a look. It conjured images of desert islands and palm trees, although I was fairly sure this wasn’t what we would find. Somewhere off the trail we could hear the thrum of a woodpecker pecking at a tree. We stopped and peered into the forest but saw nothing but a few tell tale holes in trunks.

Blinking in the sunlight, we emerged from the trails onto a narrow road. Momentarily I had the urge to turn and dash back into the forest, never to return but I also wanted to see the Lost Lagoon so we crossed and headed towards it. This was once a shallow basin or cove surrounded by mudflats and used by native food gathers to collect clams. They called the area Ch’ekxwa’7lech, Squamish for ‘gets dry at times’. As we stepped onto the edge of the Lost Lagoon Trail I could almost imagine the Squamish crouched by this same deep blue water with the tall trees as a backdrop. Of course I had to half close my eyes and ignore the modern benches and the man made trail.

A few steps further and the spell was broken completely by the skyscrapers on the opposite bank reflected in the still water. This was the spot where the ancient forest and the modern city collided. Back in 1886, when Vancouver City Council voted to lease the wonderful military reserve forest for use as a park, those skyscrapers wouldn’t have been there and this would still have been a sheltered cove with mudflats that dried out in summer. Then, there were still villages occupied by First Nations people and several homes occupied by non aboriginal settlers. Despite this, the park opened in 1888 and was named after Lord Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, the British politician who’d recently been appointed Canada’s Governor General. The following year Lord Stanley visited and officially opened the park. Throwing his arms to the sky he declared “to the use and enjoyment of peoples of all colours, creeds, and customs, for all time. I name thee, Stanley Park.”

The area is a nesting ground for many species of birds, including Canada geese, mallards and great blue heron. Apparently there are even mute swans, an introduced species here, with clipped wings to stop them escaping, although we didn’t see any. There are also turtles, we saw some clustered together on a rock as we made our way along the trail.

In 1909 plans were afoot to build a causeway across the mouth of the cove. There was some controversy surrounding the idea. Some people wanted the cove to be preserved as a lake, others wanted it filled in and used as a sports fIeld. No one seemed to consider leaving it as it was, except, perhaps the people living along its edges and in the forest. The Squamish village of Xwayxway had been mostly empty since the turn of the century although one Squamish family, Howe Sound Jack and Sexwalia ‘Aunt Sally’ Kulkalem remained until 1923 when Sally died. A few settlers managed to stay but the Chinese settlers were considered to be squatters and were ordered to go. They refused and their shacks were burned. The last resident of the park was Tim Cummings, who lived at Brockton Point until his death in 1958. The Stanley Park causeway was built in 1916 and the cove that got dry at times was turned into a saltwater lagoon.

These days the lagoon is no longer filled with salty sea water. In 1929 the saltwater pipes entering from Coal Harbour were shut off and the resulting lake was stocked with trout. For some years fishermen lined the banks where the Squamish had once gathered clams, and canoes and boats could be rented from the park board. In 1938, when the path around the lake was built, the area was declared a bird sanctuary and the fishing and boating was stopped in order to protect the water fowl. As we strolled along I even spotted a nesting box erected on a long pole.

The lagoon covers forty one acres and the path we walked on is over a mile long, stretching right around the perimeter. The name Lost Lagoon comes from a poem of the same name by Emily Pauline Johnson. When this was still a cove she would paddle it in a small canoe. In the summer, when the cove dried out, this pleasure was lost to her and she called it the Lost Lagoon, much as I call Palmerston Park the Enchanted Park. Her poem inspired the Park Board to officially name the lake Lost Lagoon in 1922. By this time Emily Pauline Johnson was dead and the lagoon permanently lost.

We walked on. The tall city buildings on the opposite bank put me in mind of Central Park where the Manhattan skyscrapers intrude in much the same way. On our side of the lake, where the trees and plants held sway, a pair of mallards were basking in the sun next to a sign with a picture of mallards and the words ‘everyone needs a home.’ They certainly seemed happy in theirs and seeing them made me smile.

The margins of the woodland beside the gravel trail were sprinkled with celandine and more dandelions than I’ve ever seen. Massed together they looked so lovely I almost regretted pulling them out of my grass at home. When we were in the forest we’d been alone, now we had to share the path and the lake with other walkers. This is a popular place for people to stroll or birdwatch. In winter, if the lake freezes, it can even be used for skating and ice hockey. Today was as hot as summer, twenty five degrees, so it was hard to imagine anything ever freezing.

Lovely as it all was I couldn’t help wishing I’d seen it before, when it was a wild cove with no buildings, benches or little round man made islands for nesting birds. Out on the far side of the lake we could see the concrete base of a fountain, although no water was flowing from it. This was built, amid much controversy over the cost, for the city’s Golden Jubilee in 1936. The lake had to be drained to complete the work but, within a month, the fountain was switched on and declared  “a symphony concert, in motion and color instead of music,” by Harold Williams the Hume & Rumble Ltd. engineer who supervised the work. It would have been nice to see it in action but it is currently not working.

As we came towards the causeway end of the lagoon the margin of the lake became marshy and filled with marshland plants. We turned the gently curving corner. Now we were walking beside the causeway, screened from it by trees and heading towards the city with its tall buildings. There was a little building on the edge of the lake ahead of us. Commando pointed to it and said something I didn’t quite catch. When I turned to him I wasn’t watching where I was putting my feet. I tripped and landed on the gravelly path.

Commando was more worried about the phone I’d been carrying in my hand than me and my delicate skin. While I dusted the gravel off my leggings he took the blasted phone and examined it, grumbling about a scratch or two on the protective screen cover. We found a bench and sat down. Commando was still looking at the phone, testing to see if it worked and muttering about my clumsiness, while I was more concerned about the graze on my rapidly swelling  and painful right hand. After a while we carried on along the lake path. When we came to a public toilet I went inside to check out my scraped knee, run my hand under the cold tap and take my rings off before my fingers swelled any more.

This little disaster was our cue to leave the lagoon and head back towards the beach and the city. We found a Starbucks near Morton Park and I used my frappachino to ice my wounded hand. It hurt and I couldn’t move all my fingers properly but I figured I’d live to fight another day. At least my phone was still working so I managed to take some pictures of A-maze-ing Laughter, the huge series of bronze sculptures in the park.

The fourteen three meter tall statues are of designer, Yue Minjun,  laughing hysterically. The piece was created for the Vancouver International Sculpture Biennale and was donated to the city in 2012. They certainly cheered me up, even if my hand still hurt.

The Lost Lagoon

It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey,
Beneath the drowse of an ending day,
And the curve of a golden moon.

It is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and–you,
And gone is the golden moon.

O! lure of the Lost Lagoon,–
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs,
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.

Emily Pauline Johnson

Please see my copyright information before you copy or use any of the above words or pictures.