One of Vancouver’s oldest traditions was renewed again on Wednesday as Stanley Park’s famous Hollow Tree officially reopened to the public after being badly damaged by wind storms in 2007.
In 1927, a photograph was taken of a 1927 Auburn backed into Stanley Park’s infamous Hollow Tree, surrounded by two pairs of men and women dressed in their Sunday best.
On Wednesday, that iconic scene was re-enacted as 85-year-old Lorne Findlay and wife Irene, 83, reversed the only other ‘27 Auburn sold in Vancouver at the time into the hollow of the restored tree.
Findlay, a local vintage car collector and mechanic by trade, drove a tour bus for over 50 years to the landmark, and always marvelled at the thousands of tourists who had their picture taken in front of it.
“That was the thing to do in those days, to get your picture taken in front of the Hollow Tree,” said Findlay.
He has accumulated a whole collection of personal photos of cars, small buses – even an elephant after a circus came to town – taken in front of the Hollow Tree.
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Findlay also recalls how thousands of postcards were printed up locally and sent abroad, making Stanley Park’s Hollow Tree Vancouver’s distinguishing feature around the world.
“If you didn’t know anything about Vancouver, you had probably seen a postcard of the Hollow Tree,” he said.
Windstorms in 2007 destroyed up to 10,000 trees in Stanley Park and left the 1,000-year-old red cedar, 13 metres high and 20 metres in circumference, tilting dangerously.
Bruce Macdonald from the Hollow Tree Conservation Society said Wednesday that his group sprang up in 2007, as soon as the Vancouver Park Board decided to cut the tree down and lean it on its side.
“It’s a symbol of the uniqueness of Vancouver and it’s actually a reason people came to Vancouver in the first place,” said Macdonald, referring to the beginnings of the Hastings Sawmill in 1867.
Macdonald and a core group of four others – all with engineering backgrounds – raised nearly $100,000 in cash, concrete and steel and devised a plan to reinforce and restore the landmark themselves.
“They’re high-level business people but you’d never know it if you went down there and saw them shovelling all day long,” he said.
“Dozens and dozens” of weekends later, the Hollow Tree stood again – with a new concrete foundation and concealed steel pipes inside the trunk leading up to a form-fitting steel cap “to the nearest 1/8 of an inch of fitting the wood,” Macdonald said.
“You can look up and still see the exact shape of the hollow,” Macdonald said proudly.
Findlay, who rolled into the restored tree in his equally refurbished ‘27 Auburn, can now continue another century-old tradition he helped renew in 1961. Every Boxing Day he has driven to the Hollow Tree with fellow members of his vintage car club.
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