Third Beach, my favourite Vancouver beach, tucked away on the west side of Stanley Park. This view shows the stairs which lead down and across the seawall path to the beach from the parking, change rooms, and concessions area above. Beyond the beach is Burrard Inlet extending into the Straight of Georgia with the mountains of Vancouver Island in the far background.
Historically, the military first cleared the forest in this area in the late 1930s to early 1940’s when they added defensive installations and gun placements to Ferguson Point. This was also around the time the seawall was added to this western stretch of the park. The Park Board continued building up this beach with dredged sand from English Bay throughout the twentieth century.