At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, as major global cities shut down, the bustling streets of Vancouver went quiet. Business shuttered. Malls were empty. And hundreds of the logs, used for decades as seating on the city’s beaches, were banished to a “log jail”.
Neat lines of driftwood have long been a fixture along the shores that fringe much of Vancouver. But an ongoing battle over the fate of the beloved beach logs has raised broader questions over access to public space.
Placed deliberately by city staff, the logs – a mix of hemlock, cedar and fir – are a vestige of the city’s past when, in 1963, architect Cornelia Oberlander watched in horror as city workers burned logs that had washed ashore from a boom.
She lobbied the parks commissioner for a bold experiment in landscape architecture; converting the flotsam into public seating.
“I’ve always just assumed that people had logs on their beaches everywhere, because they’re such an intuitive feature. They provide seating, a bit of shade and people like a space to mark out where they’re spending the day,” said Michelle Cyca, a Vancouver-based writer who recently penned a ‘love letter’ to the logs. “Beaches that don’t have them, in a way, seem featureless.”
In April 2020 however, city crews began using heavy machinery to remove the logs, acting under the assumption that seating encouraged crowding and gathering.
The logs, stacked atop one another, were penned in by tall metal fencing, leaving the beaches empty. Residents were quick to name the enclosures “log jail”.
Saw one of these last week: #logjails pic.twitter.com/bpPA9SHXap
— Physgal² (@SJDJ) May 17, 2020
Cyca says when the logs disappeared, so too did a feeling of community space.
“The images of the logs locked up were really sad and the beaches felt like dead space. In Vancouver for most of the year, you can’t really sit on the beach. It’s cold and wet. By removing the logs, the city seemed to be saying there was no place for you any more,” she said. “It was strangely heartbreaking.”
Months later, the city relented, even attempting to be part of the joke by admitting the caged in logs had, in fact, been imprisoned.
“Officially released from #logjail,” the parks board tweeted in June 2020 as it released logs and social media celebrated.
“Putting the logs back felt like it was kind of reopening the doors again for people to get together on the beach and hang out and have a good time,” said Cyca. “It’s like we could treat them as fun, safe spaces again.”
But earlier this week, CityNews reported that not all prisoners had been freed.
Vancouver’s parks board said in a statement that “in light of several learnings that arose” from the pandemic and from caging the logs, it was opting to return only a handful back to the beaches.
The board said cleaning the beach of garbage is a lot easier now without the logs and said crews were finding less discarded waste.
“Since removing the logs, we’ve found there to be fewer needles, broken glass and other hazards. It also provides staff, rangers and the police clearer lines of sight across the beaches,” the city said in a statement.
But the refusal to release more logs to the beaches has reignited a debate unfolding across the country, over who has – or should have – access to public space.
“The pandemic has really helped us realize the value of great public spaces. They’re great for our mental health and our community health,” said Cyca. “And it’s disappointing to see those clawed back for bureaucratic, maintenance or enforcement reasons … Because it really just feels like open beaches makes it easier for police to drive around on ATVs to ticket people drinking beer.”
The park board also claims the absence of logs means people space out more and the beaches are better protected from extreme weather.
“If you go to a restaurant and there’s no chairs, you understand they don’t want you to stay there to eat your food,” said Cyca. “And if you go to a beach, and they’ve removed everything that people used to gather around, it feels like you’re no longer invited.”
