Spanish Banks Beach now has a new naturalized water-flowing creek from Pacific Spirit Regional Park
This stream is now hard to miss, running north-south for a length of about 85 metres between the park’s open grassy areas and parking lots.
Previously running through a culvert, the project involved daylighting the historic stream and restoring its surrounding habitat.
The transformed area now offers visitors new naturalized green spaces, nearly an acre of habitat for birds, aquatic life, and pollinators, and improved public access through new trails and a viewing boardwalk deck.
Previous condition:
Previous condition of Spanish Banks Beach Park with the buried Canyon Creek in a culvert. (Google Maps)
New condition:
Design of the new daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park, located west of Parking Lot A. (Vancouver Park Board)
New daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Vancouver Park Board)
“We’re thrilled to welcome visitors and residents to Canyon Creek this summer to appreciate the natural beauty of the newly restored creek and its surrounding area,” said Park Board chair Laura Christensen in a statement today.
“The daylighting of the creek illustrates the Park Board’s commitment to bringing nature back into the city.”
Immediately to the south of Northwest Marine Drive and the parking lot, paralleling the creek’s route, an existing trail entrance leads to the East Canyon and West Canyon trails of Pacific Spirit Regional Park. As the names suggest, the trails deep inside the regional park frame an impressive deep gully/ravine, with an elevation gain of about 80 metres between the trail heads at Northwest Marine Drive and Chancellor Boulevard.
New daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Vancouver Park Board)
New daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Vancouver Park Board)
New daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Vancouver Park Board)
Construction on the daylighting and naturalization project began in late 2024. Crews removed the buried pipes, regraded the land, planted local vegetation, and converted 65 vehicle parking stalls into greenspace to make room for the creek and new wetland and riparian ecosystems. The project also rerouted the park’s multi-use pathway for pedestrians and cyclists, and added interpretive signage to educate the public on the ecological benefits of the restoration.
In addition to $1.175 million of municipal funding, the project also received $993,000 from the federal government, providing a total budget of nearly $2.2 million.
As Vancouver urbanized over the past 150 years, many of its creeks and streams were buried in pipes, filled in, or diverted to make way for roads and building developments. Made evident by projects such as the Canyon Creek revival, there are growing efforts to restore some of these lost natural streams where possible, including at the nearby future Jericho Lands development.
Further to the east, the Park Board also completed the daylighting of a buried stream in Kitsilano’s Tatlow Park in 2024 — a similar design to the Canyon Creek project — creating a new naturalized stream that now flows into English Bay.
New daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Vancouver Park Board)
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