Still Creek is a part of the larger Brunette River Watershed and flows across Vancouver, Burnaby, and New Westminster from Burnaby Lake close to Grandview Highway into the Fraser River. Back in the 1920s, Still Creek was still reachable based on testimonials of the residents. People used to swim and fish in the area with its vast bio-diversity and abundance of different varieties of fish, like chum salmon and trout.
Since 1950s, city of Vancouver and City of Burnaby had started their transformation from a sub-urban area to a mix industrial residential area to fit the transportation hub character the region had. The undergone changes were vast. The green space in the region was turned into industrial warehouses and factories. To accommodate the influx of residents, houses, apartments were built. To maximize the available land to build infrastructure, rivers were culverted underground in order to gain the extra 10% of land that formerly was the river. The river system was changed to a extend that up to 90% of the river was put underground. Following the changing landscape, salmon and other wildlife disappeared with the river. A report from the City of Burnaby said the salmon were disappeared for 80 years. Not just the biodiversity was disappeared in the region, the rivers and streams in the areas was also deemed toxic to people and was unusable for recreational use.
As a very much symbol of biodiversity, salmon was reported coming back to the area in 2012 in Still Creek. The news reports hinting the effort was made by the local government that leads to the return of salmon after 80s years since they disappeared. The media guided the changes that have been made is “Still Creek Enhancement plan” initiated by the Government of Vancouver in the year of 2002.
Until late 80s to early 90s, the comprehensive development plan from the City of Vancouver suggested to maintained the existing landscape characteristic to cooperate with future development. The restoration of Still Creek is under a sub-part of the development plan. The object is to maintain the remaining natural landscape Still Creek and improve the water quality and the biodiversity in the waterbody.