Metro Vancouver’s Fort Langley Cranberry Festival is a FREE event with a market and family-friendly activities on the Thanksgiving Weekend in Fort Langley.
The 27th annual edition of the festival happens in 2022 on Saturday, October 8th. It features a pancake breakfast, live entertainment, a hundred market vendors and over a dozen food trucks.
Some of the festivities happen at the Fort Langley National Historic Site and others happen in the town. For the fort’s official website click Fort Langley Parks Canada. To learn more about the event, continue reading.
This article contains the following information:
Festival Location | Festival Activities | About the Festival | Free Shuttle Service | Tips & Advice | About Fort Langley & Cranberries | Other Information
Click any of the above links for details about a specific topic, or continue reading to learn all about the Fort Langley Cranberry Festival. (Note: details are subject to change.)
Cranberry Festival in Historic Fort Langley
The family-friendly Fort Langley Cranberry Festival was going to celebrate its 25th year in 2020. Because of COVID-19, however, the event was cancelled. It did, however, happen last year.
In 2022, the festival happens on the Saturday of the Thanksgiving Long Weekend, so on October 8th. It’s open rain or shine from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm (but there is also a pancake breakfast starting at 9:30 am). Festivities occur along the street near the Fort Langley Community Hall which is located at at 9160 Glover Road. Activities also happen at the Fort Langley National Historic Site where admission for the day is free.
In years with good weather, the event attracts tens of thousands of people. It’s a great event!
HALLOWEEN IN LANGLEY
If you like haunted houses, while out in the Langley region on the Thanksgiving Weekend, you should consider checking out Brinkworth Dungeon. It’s an exceptional haunted house located at 22260 48th Avenue (so just 12 km or so south of Fort Langley. The displays at this place are almost all handcrafted by a professional artist!
Other great Halloween attractions in the Fraser Valley include Fantasy Farms in Chilliwack and Maan Farms in Abbotsford. They both have pumpkin patches and family-friendly activities for children as well as haunted corn mazes for serious fright seekers.
Later in the month, starting on October 14th, there are also Grave Tales walking tours in Fort Langley which are also highly recommended!
Cranberry Festival Location
The Cranberry Festival takes place in Fort Langley which is a beautiful historic town located in the Fraser Valley about a 45-minute drive from downtown Vancouver.
Much of the event takes place in the heart of the town at the Fort Langley Community Hall (at 9167 Glover Road) and along the main street in front of the building for a couple of blocks in either direction. Activities also happen at the Fort at 23433 Mavis Avenue.
Cranberry Festival Activities
Last year the Fort Langley Cranberry Festival featured over 60 vendors and about 10 food trucks, which was smaller than usual. In 2022 there are around 100 food vendors and 16 food trucks. At the event there is always a variety of activities available for children. There is also live music and beer, the latter of which was a new offering last year.
The Fort Langley Cranberry Festival features a pancake breakfast in the morning, a market with dozens of vendors, and a wide range of family-friendly activities. In a typical year there are often cooking demonstrations and all kinds of cranberry-themed things to do and look at.
In normal years, there are special activities and people in period costume at the Fort Langley National Historic Site itself, similar to a normal busy weekend in the summer, but with a bit of a cranberry theme. Admission to the fort during the Cranberry Festival is also free.
The historic site is an interesting place to visit any day of the year, so many festival attendees also spend some time at the fort. In addition to regular blacksmith and barrel-making demonstrations, one special fort activity for the festival most years is a “cranberry stomp.”
Fort Langley’s regular weekly Farmers Market also usually takes place at the same time as the festival in its regular location at 9025 Glover Road. The venue is just a block or so from the rest of the village’s main festival activities. The market is always a popular one, and especially so during the Cranberry Festival.
About the Festival
The Fort Langley Cranberry Festival has been running since 1996. It has grown into an event of significant size.
The main focus of the festival is the market which features over 60 vendors selling everything from fresh cranberries to cranberry baked goods, wines and art. There is a large yet fairly typical artisan and farmers market, but with a cranberry theme and tons of people.
Below is some other general information about the event that’s good to know, especially in years when there isn’t a pandemic.
- Dogs are welcome at the festival in most areas, except not indoors at the Community Hall or in the fort. Glover Road gets packed with thousands of people, however, so not all canine participants will enjoy the experience.
- Be prepared for crowds yourself. It can get insanely busy in the market as well as with traffic on the surrounding roads.
- If you want to stock up on cranberries, be sure to buy them earlier in the day before they sell out. Just remember though that, unless you somehow manage to park your car close by, you’ll have to walk around with your purchases for the rest of your visit.
- Live music and other activities take place in and around the Community Hall.
- A couple of years ago admission to the fort was free thanks to the Canada 150 celebrations. In 2019, again, admission was free. It’s the same again in 2022, so be sure to drop by for a visit.
Free Shuttle Service
With up to as many as 50,000+ people attending the small town’s event during non-pandemic years, parking can be a challenge. Most years the festival offers a free shuttle service. In years when the service is offered, shuttle buses run regularly from both Trinity Western University and Walnut Grove Secondary School. Hopefully this service is happening in 2022, but we don’t know if it is.
Trinity Western University is located close to the Trans-Canada Highway at 7600 Glover Road. It’s on the same street as the festival but to the south and about a 12-minute drive away (in good traffic). Walnut Grove Secondary, meanwhile, is located at 8919 Walnut Grove Drive, so about a 10-minute drive west of Fort Langley via 88th Avenue.
Parking at the school is usually free, but at the university you have to pay. In some (but not all) years the fee is waived at Trinity Western during the festival.
Again, whether the bus service and free parking at the university is happening in 2022, we don’t know. Hopefully they are, but exact details are to be confirmed.
Tips and Advice
Below are some suggestions and extra information to help you make the most out of your visit to the festival in future years.
TIP #1: The cost per hour for parking at the university gets less and less the longer you pay for (or at least that was the case the last time we checked). Consequently, if parking there and needing to pay, pay for more than you expect to stay. Why? 1) Because the extra bit of time is cheap, 2) you might want to stay longer than you plan and 3) there can sometimes be a line up and traffic delays for the shuttle coming back.
TIP #2: Before putting your money in the parking machine at Trinity University (if you park there), make sure you really do have to pay. There’s a chance you won’t in which case there should be signs around stating this. If there are no signs, however, then odds are that regular rates do still apply.
TIP #3: If the shuttle service is in fact available, don’t wait until the very end to get in the lineup for your return trip back to your car. Lots of people use the service in years when it’s offered!
TIP #4: Unless you arrive really early, don’t expect to find parking anywhere remotely close to the centre of town. As the day progresses cars start to park along the roads as far as a couple of kilometres away.
TIP #5: If you have bicycles and a bike rack, take them with you to Fort Langley. You can then park a ways away and cycle to the event, which will mean less of a walk and less time in the traffic mayhem!
About Fort Langley and Cranberries
The Fort Langley Cranberry Festival is one of the largest events of the year for the community of Fort Langley. Other major events include Fort Langley May Days with its parade in May and the Fort Langley Jazz & Arts Festival in the summer, among others.
Fort Langley itself is a beautiful historic town with a National Heritage site fort, a couple of museums, antique shops and colonial-style buildings. Both the fort and the town are well worth visiting.
Fort Langley is located at the edge of what’s known as the Fraser Valley part of the Lower Mainland. It’s a predominantly agricultural area with all kinds of farm land. Cranberries are the largest crop for the region, which explains why the October festival is all about cranberries. Between the Fraser Valley and Richmond, the Lower Mainland is one of the largest producers of cranberries anywhere in the world!
GRAVE TALES AT HALLOWEEN
Another fun thing to do in autumn in the region is to go on one of the Grave Tales walking tours. Hosted by the Fort Langley National Historic Site, they take place late at night during the Halloween season. The tours are excellent and highly recommended! To book your spot and learn more about the activity, visit the Parks Canada website.
Other Information
To learn more about the Fort Langley Cranberry Festival, check out the Cranberry Festival website.
For more details about the town and region, click Fort Langley or the Fraser Valley. For information about the National Historic Site, click Fort Langley Fort.
Other articles that might be of interest include the following:
- Vancouver October Calendar
- Festivals & Events Calendar
- Thanksgiving in the Lower Mainland
- Vancouver Halloween Events
- Vancouver on a Budget
- Best Places in Autumn
