A Mother’s Day Powwow takes place at the Trout Lake Community Centre on the Mother’s Day Weekend in May each year. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.
Trout Lake Mother’s Day Traditional Powwow
The annual Mother’s Day Powwow at Trout Lake takes place over three days. In 2025 it happens on the weekend of May 9th to 11th.
The times for the different parts of the event should be similar to last year, when it ran from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm on the Friday and from 12:00 pm until 6:00 pm on the Saturday. On the Sunday activities started at noon. Exact details for 2025 are to be confirmed as of early April.
The event this year is hosted by the Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council. The powwow honours local First Nations’ matriarchs, especially those impacted by the MMIWGT2S+ and opioid crises. There are drum groups, dancers and market vendors.
Where Does the Powwow Happen?
Trout Lake is the more commonly used name for John Hendry Park. Technically the lake is only a part of the park, but most people in the area simply refer to the whole park as Trout Lake.
Most of the powwow events take place inside the Trout Lake Community Centre at 3360 Victoria Drive in Vancouver. The community centre is between a 15 and 30-minute walk from the Commercial-Broadway and Nanaimo SkyTrain Stations. The stations are both approximately 1.2 km away from the community centre, but in different directions.
Inside the centre there’s a small Indigenous market during the event, as well as an Elder room and meal service to enjoy as a community. There’s also plenty of drumming and dancing that happens at the South-West baseball diamond on the other side of the park.
The powwow is entirely free to attend and open to everyone.
Other Information
To learn more about the event, see the Trout Lake Community Centre‘s websites.
This event, and all events at the Trout Lake Community Centre, take place on the traditional and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and sə̓ lílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Coast Salish Nations.
(Note: MMIWGT2S+ refers to missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two-spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and other related persons.)
Other articles that might be of interest include the following:
- Vancouver’s May Calendar of Events
- Mother’s Day Weekend in Vancouver
- Lower Mainland First Nations
- Lower Mainland Powwows
- National Indigenous Peoples Day
- Trout Lake on National Indigenous Peoples Day
- National Day for Truth and Reconciliation