About Deer Lake Park

• Type: Park

• Length: 3.4 km

• Traffic: Moderate to Heavy

• Route Type: Loop

We finally got to visit Deer Lake Park in Burnaby, British Columbia, this weekend. This park is situated east of Vancouver and it offers a beautiful and peaceful walk around Deer Lake. The path is a combination of crushed gravel, dirt and a large stretch of wooden walkways. Around the park, there are beautiful public spaces where they sometimes hold things like outdoor concerts.

There are several entrances to the park, but we recommend starting from the parking lot where the boat rentals are. There's plenty of parking and from there, the walk takes about 45 minutes to do with a dog. It loops all the way around and back to the parking lot where you started.

The park is supposed to be a leashed park, but we came across a few dogs that weren't leashed. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but since the wooden walkway makes up maybe 3/4's of the park and it is fairly narrow, it's hard for me to recommend this walk to owners of reactive dogs. The narrow path makes it so that owners and dogs (and there were quite a few) need to pass each other single file, which means there's a high likeliness that dogs will cross paths and it's hard to avoid the off-leash dogs.

This wooden walkway is very well-maintained with plenty of garbage cans along the way, but because it's raised from the grass, it's not the easiest for dogs to find their spots. Markus found spots along the dirt paths and on the grassy areas that weren't on the wooden walkway. On one section of the walk, there a lot of highly sensitive ecological areas that dogs (and humans) can't be on. It is these areas that the walkway is mostly raised above.

Another interesting and slightly annoying tidbit about Deer Lake Park is that the path doesn't completely go around the lake. There are areas where the path diverges from the lake and into a small street of a neighbourhood. It felt a little strange to have to cut through neighbourhoods, but there are signs for people to get back on the path around the lake, so it's not too bad. I would recommend taking a picture of the map when you see one so you have that to bring around with you because it can be confusing. 

What we liked

• When the weather is nice, it's definitely a good walk around the lake.

• For us, the length at about 45 minutes was just right.

• We liked being able to go on the docks and they made for good photos around the lake.

What we didn’t like

• The path around the lake isn't a perfect loop and we had to cut into the smaller neighbourhood streets to get back on the path.

• The wooden walkways were fairly narrow. It's certainly fine for most dogs, but for Markus isn't great with dogs approaching him straight on, the narrow walkway forces the dogs to come head-on at each other. This is especially worse if the other dog is off-leash.

Our Recommendation For Reactive Dogs

We went to Deer Lake Park over the weekend in the mid-afternoon and it was fairly busy even though it was raining on and off. Although we have yet to go on a nice summer day, I'm fairly confident that it's going to be busy with dogs. In general, it is a nice stroll around the lake and it's worth doing, but if your dog is reactive, I would take a little bit more caution with this particular walk because of the narrow spaces of the wooden walkway. My understanding is that there’s a loop trail that you can take that doesn’t go immediately next to the lake and those paths are a bit wider (but we have yet to do that walk ourselves).

Disclaimer

Markus is a reactive, but not aggressive dog. His instinct is to avoid other dogs and he may growl, bark or lunge if provoked, but will not attack. We normally do not have issues with leashed dogs when both sides are controlled, but we will be on guard when an oncoming dog is not leashed. There are varying levels to a dog’s reactivity and only you can decide if this park, trail or hotel is appropriate for your dog. Our visits generally will not include off-leash areas; most experiences shared on The Markus Project are within leashed or undefined areas.

Please remember that our past experience visiting a park, trail or hotel may not be the same as your experience at the same park, trail or hotel. We have no control of who visits the park and whether they adhere to park rules - like leashing their dogs on leash-required paths - or not. Please use your discretion with the information provided and with your personal knowledge of your dog’s reactivity when visiting these parks, trails or hotels.