Deer Lake is a park in Burnaby with walking trails and wide open spaces. It’s also home to Burnaby Village, the Shadbolt Centre and Burnaby Art Gallery.
This article contains information about the park, as well as a couple of videos. One of the videos features the lake and the trail that goes all around it in the spring. The second showcases the gardens, Canada geese on the lawns, and a bit of the lake and its walking trails in autumn.
Note: Neil Young and Crazy Horse stop to perform at Deer Lake Park on their Love Earth Tour in 2024. The Canadian rock singer and his band play at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, July 23rd.
Deer Lake Park in Burnaby
Deer Lake is one of Metro Vancouver’s largest and most popular city parks. It’s located in Central Burnaby not far from Burnaby City Hall and halfway between Burnaby Lake and Metrotown.
The Burnaby Village Museum is located in the northeast corner of the park at 6501 Deer Lake Avenue. It’s an excellent outdoor museum with free admission in the summer and a few other times of the year.
The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts is at the north end of the park just a short ways further down the road at 6450 Deer Lake Avenue. The Burnaby Art Gallery is also nearby, located at 6344 Deer Lake Avenue at the north end of the park.
Other places of interest at Deer Lake Park include Hart House which is a historic building and present-day restaurant at 6664 Deer Lake Avenue. There is a public beach and boat rentals at 5435 Sperling Avenue (on the western edge of the park). The lake itself is the middle of the park and has walking trails all around it.
Deer Lake Events
A number of annual events take place at Deer Lake including the following:
- Symphony in the Park – a free concert with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on an outdoor stage at Deer Lake Park in July.
- Burnaby Blues + Roots Festival – a popular music festival in early August.
- Haunted Village – the Halloween attraction at Burnaby Village runs during the last few days of October.
- Deer Lake Christmas Craft Fair – a holiday craft market at the Shadbolt Centre in November.
- Heritage Christmas – the Christmas attraction at Burnaby Village between late November and the beginning of January.
In addition to the above, the Burnaby Artisan Farmers Market takes place just a 10-minute walk from the park. The market happens in the parking lot outside Burnaby City Hall at 4949 Canada Way on Saturdays between May and October.
Walking Around Deer Lake
There is a path all around the lake which is lovely to walk along. In some parts it’s a boardwalk, but mostly it’s a gravel trail. You can do a small loop around the lake, a larger loop, or the route in a figure eight. To do both loops in a figure eight is about 5 km and takes an hour or so from start to finish.
The smaller loop runs around the edge of the lake for most of the way. It takes about 35 minutes depending on how fast you walk. You can go past the end of the lake though and continue on the larger loop which then makes its way back to the lake and the last part of the smaller loop. The larger loop takes about 45 minutes. If you do both of the loops in a figure eight (where you walk along the middle section twice on your way round) it takes about an hour.
Deer Lake Videos
To give you an idea of what Deer Lake looks like, check out the following two videos. One was taken in the spring and the second in the fall. As you can see, the park is beautiful year-round.
Deer Lake in Spring Video
As you can see in the following video, there is a path that goes all the way around the lake. It takes about an hour to do the full route and the views all around are stunning.
This first video was taken in the early spring, before most of the leaves and early spring flowers had bloomed. A few weeks later it was even more beautiful.
In this video the three people walk all the way around the lake, starting near the large open grassy area in front of the Shadbolt Centre (which doesn’t appear in the video). The trio go around the lake in a clockwise direction.
As you can see in this first video, there is a small sandy beach at one end of the lake. The terrain and ecosystems are also not always the same. Also as you’ll notice, the park and its trails are all very dog-friendly.
Deer Lake in Autumn Video
This next video was taken in early November of 2020 when the fall colours were at their peak. The video starts on the large lawn in front of the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts which is the modern-looking building you’ll see behind the Canada geese in the second scene.
In the video the woman goes for a walk in the gardens which are located between the Shadbolt Centre and the Burnaby Art Gallery.
After leaving the gardens the woman and her dog head down to the lake. It’s not a huge lake, but it is a pretty one. The walking trail goes all the way around the lake.
The above video about Deer Lake in Spring shows more of the walking pathways around the lake. This second one shows just a glimpse of what the lake and its trail are like and focuses more on the autumn colours in the gardens. In the spring, the garden is famous for its rhododendrons.
Other Information
For more details about Deer Lake Park, see the City of Burnaby‘s website.
To learn more about the surrounding area, see our article about the City of Burnaby.
For information about arts programs at the park, check out the Shadbolt Centre of Arts.
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