Maplewood Flats Conservation Area, Bird sanctuary in District of North Vancouver, Canada.

Maplewood Flats Conservation Area is a nature reserve in the District of North Vancouver featuring broad mudflats along Burrard Inlet and forested upland terrain inland. The site offers viewing platforms and maintained pathways that wind through both the tidal zones and wooded areas.

In the 1940s squatters lived in cabins along the intertidal zone, including the poet and novelist Malcolm Lowry, who wrote Under the Volcano there. In December 1971 civic authorities burned most of the cabins and the land became an industrial site. In 1992 the Vancouver Port Authority leased the flats to Environment Canada for 49 years, and the Wild Bird Trust, founded in 1993, was chosen to manage it.

The flats are named after the maple trees of the upland woods, and the site's cultural life now centres on the Wild Bird Trust, founded in 1993 by Dr. Richard C. Beard and Patricia M. Banning-Lover. The trust holds a bi-annual "Return of the Osprey" Festival and runs educational sessions for schools and private groups. Behind the site office stands Ken Lum's 2012 sculpture "from shangri-la to shangri-la", scale replicas of the squatters' cabins.

The site is easy to navigate on foot, with accessible trails and rest benches positioned throughout for visitor comfort. Early mornings and late afternoons offer the best viewing times, especially when water conditions are calm and bird activity is highest.

The BC Purple Martin Stewardship and Recovery Program began in 1985, and by 2006 the flats held 66 breeding pairs, the largest colony in British Columbia. Ken Lum's 2012 sculpture "from shangri-la to shangri-la", behind the site office, reproduces the squatters' cabins at scale.