Lost Lagoon is a 41-acre man-made lake at the entrance of Vancouver's Stanley Park. This city lake within sight of the Vancouver skyline is the center of a popular recreation area. There is a walking trail around the lake and a lighted fountain in the middle. Swans, Canadian geese and blue heron are common sights on the lagoon's waters.
The Strait of Georgia is actually a part of the northeastern Pacific Ocean where the water narrows between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. It is 17 miles wide and 138 miles long. The Queen Charlotte Strait lies to the north of the Strait of Georgia. A cluster of small islands marks the northern end of the strait. To the south, the San Juan Islands of Washington State mark the end of the Strait of Georgia. The large body of water is as deep as 1,200 feet in the middle of the channel and is fed by the Fraser River near the city of Vancouver.
Musqueam Creek is the only remaining wild salmon stream in Vancouver. The creek is partially exposed to the open sky through the urban sprawl of Vancouver, unlike the 50 or so others that have been basically buried beneath the city. Conservationists are constantly working to ensure that Musqueam Creek remains an active habitat for wild salmon in the area. Although the numbers are certainly nowhere near the 100,000 salmon and trout that once spawned in the streams around Vancouver, progress is being made to conserve this small remaining breeding ground.
Boundary Bay is south of the city of Vancouver and is a recreational area where people gather near the American border for swimming and playing in the unusual bay that drains as low tide arrives. People can stroll out onto the moonscape that is the ocean floor as the low tide arrives and explore the pools of seawater that remain as the water recedes. It is also a good spot for windsurfing and is home to more than 250,000 migratory birds during certain times of the year.
