If you’ve walked by the northwest corner of Waterfront Park in North Vancouver you may have been lucky enough to wander through Chiba Gardens, but you may have just as easily missed this hidden gem as it’s quite tucked away under the foliage that is currently growing around the entrance.
This traditional Japanese garden is a lush oasis in the heart of the city and provides a respite from busy city life as a place for contemplation and surrounding oneself with nature.
Chiba Gardens is a beautiful part of the cultural heritage of North Vancouver, representing its relationship with its Japanese sister city, Chiba, a city just East of Tokyo with a moderate Pacific climate like North Vancouver and the longest hanging monorail in the world.
According to SisterCities International, a sister city “... is a broad-based, long-term partnership between two communities in two countries.” Although sometimes based on an economic or legal partnership, sister cities are often based on gaining mutual respect and understanding for each other’s cities and its citizens and their respective cultures and traditions.
The sister city relationship with Chiba began in the New Year of 1970 with Mayor H. Reid of North Vancouver and Mayor Saburo Miyauchi of Chiba signing a formal Proclamation. Part of the proclamation mentions that the friendship will provide a “furtherance of goodwill between Canada and Japan, thus making a significant contribution to the prosperity and the peace of the world”. This made the sister city relationship politically significant as well as the typical exchange of culture and tradition.
After Chiba donated two beautiful, traditional Japanese stone lanterns to North Vancouver in the 1980s, a local landscape architect, Toshimasa Ito, was commissioned with designing a garden to house them. The garden opened in 1986 and included Japanese maples, pines pruned in a traditional Japanese fashion, a pink dogwood, camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons, irises, ferns and bamboo. Each of the two stone lanterns were placed at opposite ends of the garden, and there were gravel pathways, two gated entrances, a small waterfall, two streams and a Japanese style wooden fence surrounding the garden to complete the traditional garden plan.
The streams don’t seem to have running water at the moment, but they are still lovely as dry stream beds.
The 50th year sister city anniversary was celebrated at the garden in August of 2019, and representatives and guests from Chiba were treated to traditional Taiko drumming, a Mikoshi Shrine performance and a tour of the garden. Through celebrations like this as well as thousands of North Shore youths taking part in student exchange visits to Chiba over the years, the sister city relationship is continually renewed and strengthened.
There is symbolism in the design of the garden that could easily be missed if one didn’t know its meanings. Stones collected around the lower mainland are grouped in five focal points and represent the relationship humans share with the universe. The streams begin as one and then fork away from each other symbolizing how people grow and develop and take different life paths. But the garden as a whole is also a symbol; one of friendship and understanding between two cities in two countries at opposite ends of the Pacific Ocean. It is part of a larger story of sister cities forging peace and understanding around the world, and anyone who makes use of the garden becomes a part of that beautiful story.
Have you visited Chiba Gardens? Do you have any favourite hidden gems like this on the North Shore?