The Hollow Tree and the 2010 Olympic

The Vancouver Park Board is planning to cut down the world-famous Stanley Park Hollow Tree. But they don't seem to realize the Hollow Tree figures quite prominently in the six-minute animated video and stage play that were used to introduce the 2010 Olympic official mascots, as well as in the 2010 Olympics' only children's book, and on the official 2010 Olympics website.

Time is running out fast, but there is now a real opportunity for people associated with the 2010 Olympics to make a good case for deferring for at least two years the parks board's planned destruction of the Hollow Tree this Thursday. There will definitely be numerous people who live here, or who are returning or new tourists, who will be interested in visiting the Hollow Tree during the Olympics.

This important matter needs to be brought forward immediately for the consideration of the Vancouver Heritage Commission, the Vancouver City Council, and the Vancouver Park Board, as well as at the federal level at Parks Canada and by the people responsible for the Olympics.

The animation currently on the 2010 Olympic website and YouTube explains the stories of the three Olympic mascots, and how they met. The first minute deals with the origins of Miga, the baby killer whale that can transform into a bear.

After Quatchi the Sasquatch has been introduced, the next segment (1:30-2:20) explains how Quatchi heads off to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, arriving in Vancouver under a full moon to stay in Stanley Park's Hollow Tree.

Stanley Park is clearly labelled on a sign when Miga arrives in Stanley Park.

Watch it on YouTube, starting at about one minute and 30 seconds elapsed time.

The segment from 3:50 to 3:55 of the video shows Quatchi and Miga flying towards downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park.

This same story was repeated on the stage during the formal introduction of the mascots to the media last year in Surrey.

The whole mascot story is illustrated in a children's book, the Vancouver 2010 Mascot Story Book.

The Hollow Tree, just like the National Geographic Tree a one-minute walk away from it, is world famous: untold thousands of people have read about them, and unknown thousands of tourists have already seen them in person. No doubt many people will be planning to visit them in two years, when they come to the Olympics in Quatchi's and Miga's footsteps.