Shields Dam Park

Trail heads: Millstream Rd & Eyremount Dr, Pinecrest Dr.

Before I learned that Shields Dam Park existed, I had no idea that there was a dam in the British Properties. First I thought it might be a big dam like the one at the top of Capilano River, but that didn't seem too likely. Nina thought that it might be an impressive beaver dam. That seemed more plausible, but neither of us could guess what the dam was actually like.

We approached the park from the east, where the trail head was labelled like this:

The trail is a wide, rocky cut through thick forest   clearly an old logging road. Signs along the way indicated that there is a logging history walking tour that includes this park. On of those signs is this one:

Shields Dam is a log dam in every sense of the word. It's a dam made out of logs that was used for getting logs down Hollyburn Mountain via Lawson Creek. It's a very cool thing to see, but I would not recommend following the arrow on this particular sign. Instead, keep following the main trail.

In just a few minutes, you will come to this set  of bridges over the creek:

If you visit in the summer, you'll be able to skip the bridges and just walk straight across the dry creek bed.

Keep following the trial after that and soon you'll find a gate with a big warning sign. It's the type of sign that just makes you want to walk past it, but I managed to find the self control to save that path for another day. (I'll definitely go back, though. There was another sign that said something about a viewpoint.) Instead, I turned left and found myself at the official viewing area for Shields Dam.

There's a bench and a barrier to keep you from falling into I'm not sure what. The barrier also says "Shinglebolt" on it for no discernible reason. The barrier doesn't make much sense at all, but the bench is a good place to look at the dam from. Unfortunately, you're just going to have to take my word for this because Igor was home sick the day that all the little cameras learned to take pictures in the forest.You'll just have to visit Shields Dam Park to get a glimpse of this cool piece of logging history.

PPR
Good: patch of history, easy trail, many other trails start from this park, plenty of signs so you won't get lost, it's just cool
Bad: not much light, at the very edge of the developed British Properties (hard to get to), it's more of a trail than a park
7/10