The History of Lost Lagoon
Lost Lagoon, on the edge of the city at the entrance to Stanley Park, is only about 100 years old. This captive body of water used to be free-flowing from Coal Harbour, before it was penned in by the Stanley Park Causeway. Here is some history of Lost Lagoon…
The History of Lost Lagoon
How Lost Lagoon Was Lost
It was poet E. Pauline Johnson that came up with the name Lost Lagoon. When the tide was in, water lapped the shores of the West End. When the water retreated with the tide, the lagoon disappeared entirely.
O! lure of the Lost Lagoon, ā
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs,
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon. Ā» read the full poem…
This area of mud flats is was called ChāelxwaĢ7elch by the Squamish People, meaning “get dry” (read more Indigenous place names in the Squamish Atlas).
In the early days of the park, the entrance was a bridge, under which the Burrard Inlet water flowed in and out of the lagoon. Between 1916 and 1926 the Stanley Park Causeway was built, land-locking the water entirely. In 1922, the Vancouver Park Board officially called it “Lost Lagoon”, based on the name put to paper by E. Pauline Johnson, who passed away in 1913.
City Beautiful Plan
Michael Kluckner writes in his book Vancouver Remembered that we almost lost the lagoon entirely and ended up with a sports field.
The “City Beautiful” plan would have seen the lagoon filled in to provide space for a sports field or a museum or stadium. Michael quotes a Park Board engineer of the time who said, āFortunately, they never got beyond the plan stage. The design might have been suitable for a Peace Palace or a European Capitol, but would have resulted in substituting for the present beautiful natural lagoon a purely artificial treatment at a very high cost.ā Michael comments, āOnce again, lack of money saved Vancouver from the visionaries.ā [Source: Vancouver History]
Freshwater and Sanctuary Development
“The next phase in the lake’s development came in 1929, when the saltwater pipes entering from Coal Harbour were shut off, turning it into a freshwater lake. The BC Fish and Game Protection Association was given permission to stock the lake with trout. The Stanley Park Flyfishing Association was formed, and charged members to fish in the lake, while the park board profited from the canoe and boat rentals. This came to an end in 1938 when the walkway around the lake was constructed and the area declared a bird sanctuary.” [Source: Mike Steele: Vancouver’s Famous Stanley Park: The Year-Round Playground]
Today, Lost Lagoon is home to the Stanley Park Nature House, views of the West End, and many of the park’s creatures — from migratory birds to otters, beavers, turtles, and flying squirrels.
However, the health of the ecosystem is in peril. The lagoon shares many similar ecological problems with lakes located in urban park areas such as eutrophication, pollution, sediment infilling, and invasive species [Stanley Park Ecology, 2021]. Water quality of the lake continues to degrade over the years by different reasons. The most concerning is the appearance of turquoise-coloured water in the summer of 2009 thought to be caused by blue-green algae, a type of cyanobacteria [CBC, 2009].
Over several summers now the rather stagnent brackish water has led to fish die-offs [CBC, 2022] and odorous algae blooms.
“Now, in the condition that it’s in and due to decisions made in the past, we have a lake that’s in a very unhealthy condition,” said Chad Townsend, senior planner with the Vancouver Park Board [CBC, 2025]. He said infilling over the years has left the entire lake about a metre deep, and it’s been contaminated by heavy metals and runoff from Highway 99, which now separates Lost Lagoon from Coal Harbour and the sea.
Update March, 2026
The Vancouver Park Board has endorsed future exploratory work to reconnect the lagoon to Coal Harbour and Second Beach and improve its ecological health. After a century of infilling, Lost Lagoon has experienced a growing bloom of algae, worsening water quality and harming its aquatic and plant life. A survey in 2018 revealed that most of the lagoon is now less than one metre deep.
In response to these issues, staff have been exploring options to reconnect Lost Lagoon through a smaller channel to Second Beach, restoring it as a tidal ecosystem. Combined with new culverts linking the lagoon to Coal Harbour, this would see daily tidal flushing to improve water depth and quality.
A redesigned lagoon would create channels and tidal habitat with fluctuating depths. During periods of low tide, visitors to Lost Lagoon might see bird-rich mud flats, while during high tide, the area could appear more marsh-like.
Early design concepts show potential new features, including:
- Creation of approximately 140,000mĀ² of restored tidal lagoon habitat and 2,000m of shoreline.
- Removal of the lagoonās existing concrete edges and reuse of dredged material to form more dynamic natural landscapes and intertidal habitats.
- Potential viewing opportunities at low tide.
Next steps
Following the Boardās endorsement of the Lost Lagoon tidal reconnection concept, staff will begin engaging with potential funding partners and regulatory agencies. The project is not currently funded, although staff are exploring potential funding streams.
Project staff will draw learnings from the New Brighton Park Shoreline Habitat Restoration project, completed in 2017, which also restored vital wetland habitat and added new viewing opportunities to an area leased by the Park Board from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
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I cannot see enough of the beauties of Vancouver and the West Coast. I wish I could share this and other sites with my friends in England.
Sometimes not having enough money is a fabulous thing!