Fast and Fun Facts

Some quick facts and figures about Royal Kwantlen Park for you:

1. Kwantlen Indian Reserve #7 originally covered 16 hectares (40 acres)
   
   
2. The Municipality of Surrey purchased the Kwantlen Reserve in 1954 for a little over $40,000. 4 hectares (10 acres) were given to the school board. KB Woodward school was built in 1956 and West Whalley High the following year. 0.8 hectares (2 acres) was used in 1958 for the construction of Firehall #2 on 104th Ave.
   
       
   
   
3. The remaining 11.2 hectares (28 acres) became Royal Kwantlen Park in 1959.
   
   
4. The graveyard? It was more or less where the skatepark is now. How did a cemetary come to be there? Here's the story. What happened to it? That's another interesting story ...
   
   
5. The park had a small stream and pond at one time. The pond or bog was located in the southwest end of the old Kwantlen reserve. The creek flowed out of the reserve northward, running roughly along the west end of the allweather fields and out of the park just west of the end of the parking lot on 106th Ave. If you're there after a rain, you can get an idea of it's old course by the remaining wet areas stretching from one parking lot to the other. My understanding is the pond and creek were filled when the park was built.
   
   
6. Ever wonder where that big rock in the forest on the west end of the central trail running north and south came from? I don't know where it came from from but I've got an idea how it got here. It certainly didn't fall from higher up, it's near the highest point of the park. It seems all alone in generally non-rocky ground so I don't think it's an exposed bit of bedrock. I'm thinking a glacier carried it here and left it behind when it melted roughly 13,000 years ago. A glacial erratic, the same as the big rock on the beach that gave White Rock it's name. You'll find other large rocks in the park from the same source but I think this is the only undisturbed large erratic. Most of the others seem to have been moved by the city as it constructed the park or to clear the surrounding road ways.
   
   
7. The highest point in the park, 95 meters (311 feet) above sea level, is located in the forest on the Old Yale Road side, just north of where the grassy area, forest and sidewalk meet. The lowest point in the park, 86 meters (282 feet) above sea level, is located at the parking lot on the 106 Avenue side.
   
   
8. You may see Fairy rings. These are small to medium sized circles in the grass, particularly in the open area on the Old Yale Road side. These are marked with a ring of darker green grass, anywhere from .5 meters (1.5') to over 2.5 meters (8')in diameter. They're known as fairy rings. If you're there at the right time (try October or November), you'll see hundreds of mushrooms in the dark ring area. The name comes from the old belief that at night the fairies gather around in the circle, using the mushrooms as seats for their meeting. The ring is caused by the gradual spread of a mushroom colony from a central point. The centre dies out leaving the spreading ring. The mushrooms contribute to the richness of the soil which makes for the dark green grass. At the right time the mushrooms pop up from the dark green ring shape. How very convenient for the fairies.
   
   
9. If you had stood a few hundred years ago where Kwantlen Park Secondary is now, you would have seen a lake stretching out towards Green Timbers. A hundred years ago you would have seen the lake replaced by an extensive peat bog. Mr E. Cairncross started a succesful peat mining operation in 1918 where Safeway is, on the corner of King George and 104th.
   
   
10. What's that metal panel in the ground, found between the concession stand and the top of the hill overlooking the allweather fields, you ask? For many years there was a drinking fountain and wading pool for the kids located there. If you stand on the panel and look towards the hill, the pool would be right in front of you. The six sided cement pool, with a wide sidewalk around the edge, was approximately 8 meters (26 feet) in diameter and slanted inwards to about .6 meters (2 feet) deep at the centre. It had not been used in at least 22 years when the Parks board covered the area with grass. Wish they would at least bring back the water fountain.
    
    
11. Old Yale Road has had it's official name since 1875. It got the Yale Road part when the government built a wagon road from Brownsville Bar on the Fraser River up to Yale to serve the growing population in the Fraser Valley and to join with the Cariboo Road at Yale. The "Old" was added when newer routes to Yale opened up. For hundreds of years before that, the section beside the park was the northwestern end of a number of trails coming from the south and east headed towards the Kwantlen tribe living on the Fraser.
    
    
12. Talking about roads, quite likely you already know that 104th Ave. was once called Hjorth Road. There's still some people around that remember 128th St. as Sandell Road. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who remembers 104A Ave. as Edwayne Road and 105 Ave. as Nolan Road.
    
    
13. Speaking of "what is that" things, what about the faint mossy lines in the grass marking a large 11 sided area? You can find it near the clump of cedars and Douglas firs found by walking from todays kid's play area towards the corner of the forest closest to you. You're in the right area if you see some cement pads (where picnic tables were at one time) in the grass. At one time there was an adventure playground constructed from logs, chains and tires on that spot. The lines are left from the logs that contained the sand put under the play equipment.