The Stanley Park Hollow Tree is a cultural heritage resource listed on the Vancouver Heritage Register and the Vancouver Heritage Tree Inventory, and recognized by Parks Canada as a Level One Cultural Resource in the Commemorative Integrity Statement for Stanley Park National Historic Site. The Stanley Park Hollow Tree has a special place in the memories of many Vancouverites. Today the western red cedar is BC's provincial tree, and the Hollow Tree is a wonderful local reminder of the majesty of our original forests.
The Hollow Tree is one of Vancouver's oldest and most famous landmarks, a rare surviving example of the enormous trees that originally drew the first group of non-Native people to settle in Vancouver in the 1860s. These settlers came to cut down the tallest and greatest trees in Canada that comprised forests of enormous fir, spruce and cedar.
The Hollow Tree has been an important part of Vancouver's tourist industry since the city was founded. It appears in most international tour guides and is a symbol of the uniqueness and greatness of Vancouver, British Columbia, and of Canada. Cedar and salmon have been the two main distinguishing features of local Native culture for perhaps 10,000 years and the tourist industry today still focuses on them. For local First Nations peoples, the cedar tree was considered to be the "tree of life." Cedar had innumerable uses, from building homes, furniture and canoes, to making clothing and a variety of tools, to creating medicines and masterful works of art.
A replica of the Hollow Tree made from a giant cedar from Stanley Park served to greet people from all over the world as they entered the BC-Canada Pavilion at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Committee used the Hollow Tree in its promotion of the Olympic mascots. An Olympic children’s book and a promotional animated film was produced that show how the Olympic mascots came to meet each other and go to the 2010 Olympics. Quatchi was shown arriving in Vancouver at night, and he discovers the Hollow Tree as a place to stay. Miga happens to come by, they meet, and Quatchi takes her picture at the Hollow Tree in classic Vancouver fashion.
History
The Hollow Tree has existed on the west side of what is now Stanley Park for approximately 1,000 years. When the city of Vancouver was created in 1886 from the tiny logging village of Granville, the first elected city council made a motion to create Stanley Park at the first city council meeting. Shortly after, a road was constructed around the perimeter of the new park and it ran directly to the Hollow Tree and was curved around it. The Hollow Tree soon became a ‘must see’ attraction for visitors and new arrivals to the city, who invariably were urged to take the trip around Stanley Park.
In December 2007 the Park Board noticed the Hollow Tree was leaning heavily to the east and announced it had been damaged in the great windstorm that had devastated Stanley Park. As a solution, the Park Board voted unanimously to cut it down in March 2008. A number of speakers at that meeting opposed its destruction and came together with other concerned citizens a few months later to form the Stanley Park Hollow Tree Conservation Society. They subsequently joined forces with Heritage Vancouver in recognition of their common interest in conserving the Hollow Tree.
The cache is a small lock N lock and is not located in The Hollow Tree, but just across the street at the base of another Big Red Cedar. There is ample parking at the Hollow Tree where you can not only find the cache but can add yourself to the list of others who have seen and photographed this Vancouver landmark.