Bloated and Pale

So there you are, convalescing from days of seasonal festivities, slackly staring, mouth agape at the glowy computer screen on which these bits of text appear.

You could go play videogames or go bargain hunting, wallowing for deals among the frenzied pinchpennies packing their tiny Vancouver closets with post-Christmas booty.

Or you could walk among some of the city's lovely parks. That's right - walking. Like with your feet. On dirt.

Just because Stanley Park is a woody death trap doesn't mean that you, frail urbanite, are limited to sidewalks, crosswalks and the tiled floors of malls.

I'm a big fan of Everett Crowley Park - partly because it was a garbage dump for many years before transforming itself into an only-partially-controlled urban greenspace.

There are still people kicking around who remember the park before it was logged and turned into a trash heap. A little history:

The park, Vancouver's fourth largest, served as the city's main landfill from 1944 to 1967. Prior to that, it was a coniferous forest of hemlock and cedar trees with a waterfall and salmon-bearing creek. In 1944, after several decades of logging in the area, the municipal Kerr Road Dump was established, with the ravine and stream at the centre. In 1966, when the dump was finally closed, so much waste had been deposited the landfill was 49 metres deep in places.

Still, if you are not tempted by the chance to see steam rising from the ground as a result of heaps of rotting, subterranean refuse, there are other options.