Anywhere you stand in Vancouver, you are standing on the remnants of old-growth forests. To see just how massive those trees could have been, you only need to walk to the intersection of Beach Avenue and Gilford Street in the West End. …Just a little farther away, the gentle giants of Stanley Park provide an even more immediate reminder. …But Stanley Park is not a pristine old-growth forest. These ancient trees, they’ve been logged for years. …The area now known as Stanley Park was a significant village site for the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations pre-contact. Post-contact, in 1860, the British government designated part of what is now in the park as a military reserve. It was logged by six different companies in the 1860s and 1880s, and finally became a park when Vancouver became a city in 1886.