Night for All Souls

A Night for All Souls is a free event about honouring the dead. It takes place in late October around Halloween at Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery.

This event is one of Vancouver’s more serious and solemn Halloween gatherings, but is also interesting for people of all ages and backgrounds.

Last year saw in-person activities between October 24th and November 1st. Details about this year’s Halloween event are to be confimed.

A Night for All Souls at Halloween

Vancouver’s Night for All Souls is the opening night of a festival that features a week of events about death, memorials and paying respect to the dead.

The series of events typically starts in the last week of October and ends on November 1st, which, according to many Christian denominations, is All Hallows’ Day, or All Saints Day, which is a time to honour long departed saints.

“Halloween” means “All Hallow’s Eve,” which is why it comes one day before November 1st (just like how Christmas Eve comes before December 25th).

Halloween originates from Celtic harvest festivals and has pagan routes. All of this is usually evident at Vancouver’s Night for All Souls.

All Souls Night Tents and Silhouettes — Mountain View Cemetery at Night

When and Where

A Night for All Souls takes place around Mountain View Cemetery which is at 5455 Fraser Street and bordered by Fraser, 41st Avenue, 31st Avenue and Prince Edward Street. It’s a pretty big cemetery! The event started on October 24th and ended on November 1st last year.

Memorial box lantern kits are available to pick up a few days before the event starts. There is an opening ceremony that kicks things off at 6:00 pm. Personal memorials usually take place at the cemetery every evening. On some days there’s live background music as well.

Last year on October 26th, there were performances from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm in honour of missing and murdered Indigenous and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. Tea and a reflective slideshow then ran at Celebration Hall from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm. The following day there were Chinese funeral practices with Walter Quan in the afternoon from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. On the last day of the event, November 1st, there was a procession to various shrines within the cemetery from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

Click All Souls Events for more details about all the various activities.

Choir at Mountain View Cemetery

About A Night for All Souls

The main Night for All Souls event hasn’t happened since 2019. In years when it did take place, the event on the Saturday before Halloween featured music, candles, tea, flowers, poetry and memorial shrines. According to the event’s website, it was a “non-denominational sacred event, and an opportunity for people to share their own customs and experiences.”

The event used to be sponsored by the City of Vancouver. It was free to attend and all were welcome.

You would have seen a fair number of people plus candles flickering in the darkness, illuminated shrines and musicians playing contemplative music. It wasn’t a big event, but several hundred people typically attended.

Presented by artists Paula Jardine and Marina Szijarto, the series of events developed out of the organizers’ work together with Public Dreams which is the same organization that puts on the Parade of Lost Souls which is also Halloween-related and usually takes place on the Saturday closest to October 31st.

Mountain View Cemetery Shrine

Tips & Advice

Below are some tips and suggestions to help you make the most of your Night for All Souls experience.

TIP #1: The Saturday evening used to be an interesting event and we recommend going if it ever returns. It wasn’t for everyone, but it was suitable for people of all ages.

TIP #2: A Night for All souls is similar to the Parade of Lost Souls which is also artistic and with a slightly Celtic flavour. The former is more solemn and serious. The latter attracts a primarily young-adult crowd, people in costumes and is more about fun and reveling in the Halloween season.

TIP #3: Don’t forget to take your umbrella if it looks like rain (which it usually does in Vancouver in late October). Boots or other waterproof footwear might be a good idea too if there’s a chance of puddles on the pathways.