Colony Farm Regional Park

Colony Farm Regional Park has one of the strangest histories of any park in Metro Vancouver. From 1904 until the 1980s, it was the farm attached to Riverview Hospital — the largest psychiatric facility in BC — and the land was worked by patients as part of a then-common form of therapy. After the hospital closed, the farm was transferred to Metro Vancouver Regional Parks and restored as a wildlife habitat. Today it's 262 hectares of meadows, hedgerows, slough forest, and community gardens on the Coquitlam River floodplain, right on the border between Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam.

Because the habitat is so open and varied, Colony Farm is one of the best bird-watching sites in the entire Lower Mainland. More than 180 bird species have been recorded in the park, including species like the American Bittern, Northern Harrier, Short-eared Owl, and various raptors that are difficult to see elsewhere in the region. The Vancouver Natural History Society runs guided bird walks here throughout the year.

For non-birders, Colony Farm is still worth visiting for the flat, well-maintained walking trails that loop for several kilometres through the fields and along the river. The community garden is one of the largest in Metro Vancouver — over 200 plots are actively farmed by local residents. It's a quiet, genuinely unusual park, and usually empty even on sunny weekends.