"Paradise Reclaimed" is an award-winning retrospective of the area in which the park is now situated and provides a detailed history of how the park came to be. Contact ECPC to obtain a copy of this booklet.

 History:

As recently as 1850, this area was a coniferous forest of hemlock and cedar trees, with a beautiful waterfall and salmon-bearing creek running through a natural ravine.In 1944, several decades after logging, the municipal "Kerr Road Dump" was established here. The ravine and the stream served as the centre point for the City of Vancouver's main landfill. When the dump was closed in 1966, so much waste had been deposited that the fill was up to 49 metres deep in places.

Today's Kinross Creek flows from Avalon Pond, an artificial site excavated for sand to build city street trenches. Since the early 1970's, native and invasive plants and animals have been slowly recolonizing the whole park, transforming it into a young forest of hardy deciduous trees and opportunistic blackberry.

The City of Vancouver dedicated this site as a park in 1987 after hard lobbying by local residents. The park was named after town planner and park commissioner Everett Crowley. Area residents and park users now work closely with the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation to support the park's ongoing natural recovery and reforestation process.

The trailmap displayed on the next page was installed on both the east (2000) and west (1999) entrances of the park by members of the "Lions Club of South Vancouver and the Everett Crowley Park Committee".