Ah, Stanley Park. It is the place where I had my first job, where I learned to make good milkshakes and ice-cream floats, played my first game of tennis and of golf, saw my  first live musical, my first penguin, my first swan, and learned about life and love. Stanley Park is to Vancouver what the Prater is to Vienna, only more so

Stanley Park is a place of entertainment, a place of groomed lawns and gardens, and yet a wilderness, where nothing is tamed. This city park exceeds in splendor not only the Prater but the Wiener Wald (the Vienna Woods). It is a refuge of the soul for city dwellers huddled in the high-rises that surround its edges.

I had my last real walk through and around Stanley Park in 1972 with my Uncle Eugene. We walked from his now non-existent home on Pacific Street to  English Bay and then along the shoreline until we reached Second Beach. We then returned home along paths through the forest. My last, brief visit to the park was in 1999, so fleeting, it hardly counts.

So, why am I telling you this? The cause is the novel by Timothy Taylor called simply Stanley Park. The memories this title evoked made me want to read the book. I am not sorry that I did.

Taylor wrote an evocative account of Vancouver, the park and its people. One may not necessarily agree with . . .

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