Guest
n 1876, Royal Hospital in Victoria was converted to British Columbia's first facility to house mentally ill patients. Due to crowding, Royal Hospital was closed and the patients moved to the new Provincial Asylum for the Insane in 1878. Again facing problems of overcrowding at the turn of the century, in 1904 the provincial government purchased 1,000 acres (400 ha) in then-rural Coquitlam for the construction of Riverview Hospital and the adjacent Colony Farm lands. Construction of a temporary “Hospital for the Mind” was started at the Riverview property in 1909. In 1911 British Columbia's first Provincial Botanist, John Davidson, established an arboretum, nursery and a botanical garden on the hospital lands, often with the assistance of patients as there was a belief in the therapeutic value.[5] The botanical garden was moved to the new University of British Columbia in 1916, but the arboretum and nursery remained.[6] In 1913 a permanent Provincial mental hospital, administered by Dr. H
