Fort 91原创 Lions will have the griddle going, and flapjacks flipping starting early on Saturday morning.
The Lions pancake breakfast is the traditional kickoff to the annul Fort 91原创 Cranberry Festival that has attracted upwards of 35,000 spectators from throughout the Lower Mainland to the historic village for a day of fun and food each fall.
This will be the 29th annual autumn festival, which is always held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
This year, that means that Oct. 12 the main streets of Fort 91原创 will be shut down to vehicle traffic, and instead filled with some 200-plus market vendors, 15 food trucks, and thousands of people anxious to celebrate fall, said organizer Rachelle Cashato.
"We definitely have more vendors than we have in past," said Cashato, noting they're opening up more space this year in greenspace spread between Glover Road, Mary Avenue, and Church Street.
"People really forward to it. It's such a tradition now. This is the 29th year," she said.
"It's kind of become a staple of the community," added Cashato, who helped organize the event for three years before taking over the lead role three years ago.
The festivities kick off with the Lions breakfast begins at 8 a.m. in that newly expanded greenspace.
Then, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., there will be vendors, a kids area with facepainting and crafts, live entertainment, and much more family-oriented fun transpiring throughout the heart of the village.
There will also be a beer garden at the festival, and a mix of food vendors will be set up along Mary Avenue again, Cashato said.
And, of course, since the event revolves around the cranberry, it's no surprise that fresh berries from the local bogs will be for sale during the festival, said Cashato.
In fact, Ocean Spray has once again donated 5,000 pounds of the red berries to the festival, and they will be sold for $5 minimum for five pounds, with all the money going towards covering the cost of putting on the event.
"Every penny goes back to the festival," she elaborated. "We're not here to make money, we're just here to keep the festival going."
Cashato noted that a lot of those who attend the annual Cranberry Festival are local, but without question the event has become one of the premiere fall festivities 鈥� attracting about other half the people from throughout the Lower Mainland, and a few from the B.C. Interior and Vancouver Island.
"Fort 91原创 tends to be a bit of a destination in the fall. I mean even when my kids were little and we lived in North Van, and we'd always truck it out here to go to Aldor Acres. Yeah, this area tends to bring a lot of people because of farming and the nature of the festival having so many local vendors 鈥� a lot of farm-to-table stuff, a lot of local artisans. And because it's a free festival, it draws a lot of different people," Cashato concluded.
Parking for the festival is available in the orchard space at the Fort 91原创 National Historic Site and at Living Waters Church.
Fun at the fort, too
As well, at the nearby Fort 91原创 National Historic Site, they're celebrating Cranberry Festival and paying homage to the red berry.
Today, a few pound of cranberries costs about $5.
Organizers of the fort event chuckle at that, noting that back in the fur trade era, two handfuls of cranberries could be exchange for an entire ounce of gold.
So this Saturday, they plan to uncover what they call the "fascinating history" about the nutrient-pack superfruit that was considered much more valuable in centuries past.
The fort events are also free, and more information is available .
According to organizers, the annual Cranberry Festival, this is a grassroots event started in 1995 and supported by the local community. In agreement with the Fort 91原创 Business Improvement Association, the Eric Woodward Foundation assumed long-term stewardship of the Cranberry Festival in 2020.
鈥淲ith its success, [it] has grown to become a much loved annual event, celebrating and recognizing the cranberry鈥檚 role in our local history going back thousands of years.鈥�
Fun on the water
Another aspect of the Cranberry Festival, that many visitors don't realize is happening is the Cranberry Races held in the Bedford Channel.
The Fort 91原创 Canoe Club's voyageur division will once again holding the races.
The morning event features teams of 10 paddlers executing tight turns, hard paddling, and exciting finishes in a circular course is approximately 1,000 metres in the channel.Then, the afternoon finals include a popular pumpkin drop and the cranberry juice run.
According to the club's website, all the spots are filled out.
