Burnaby Lake Regional Park
regional park in British Columbia, Canada
Burnaby Lake is a lake located in Burnaby, British Columbia and is the focal geographic feature and namesake of Burnaby Lake Regional Park. The lake occupies 3.11 square kilometres (770 acres) of land, and is home to a large variety of wildlife. At least 70 species of birds make the lake and surrounding areas their home, and about 214 species of birds visit the lake throughout the year. The park has been managed by the Metro Vancouver Parks Department since 1977.
History
Burnaby Lake is a glacial lake that formed about 12,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene ice age.
The lake was named by Colonel Richard Moody after his private secretary, Robert Burnaby. According to a map and materials by Heritage Advisory Committee and Environment and Waste Management Committee of the City of Burnaby (1993), in March 1859 Colonel Moody began to survey the site of New Westminster as the capital city for the new Colony of British Columbia. He was particularly intrigued with the possibility that a fresh water lake existed north of the town. In a letter to Governor James Douglas, Moody wrote: "I now learn from the Indians that a lake does exist... Burnaby and Blake immediately volunteered their services to explore and also to trace the mouth to Burrard's Inlet and to report generally on the countryside north of the town.
“Burnaby Lake Regional Park” enters the record as regional park in British Columbia, Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Burnaby, Lake and Regional can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Burnaby Lake Regional Park” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Burnaby, Lake and Regional provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q731136. Authority coordinates are 49.242, -122.948. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1993 and 1859.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Burnaby Lake Regional Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.