Vancouver Ecology

The vegetation in the Vancouver area was originally temperate rain forest, consisting of conifers with scattered pockets of maple and alder, and large areas of swampland (even in upland areas, due to poor drainage).[61] The conifers were a typical coastal British Columbia mix of Douglas fir, Western red cedar and Western Hemlock.[62] The area is thought to have had the largest trees of these species on the British Columbia Coast. Only in Elliott Bay, Seattle did the size of trees rival those of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The largest trees in Vancouver's old-growth forest were in the Gastown area, where the first logging occurred, and on the southern slopes of False Creek and English Bay, especially around Jericho Beach. The forest in Stanley Park was logged between the 1860s and 1880s, and evidence of old-fashioned logging techniques such as springboard notches can still be seen there.[63]