Fort Langley Cranberry Festival 2021

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

The Fort Langley Cranberry Festival is one of the most popular events on the fall calendar. With beautiful seasonal scenery and delicious eats, this much-loved annual event, celebrates and recognizes the cranberry’s role in local history.

Fort Langley Cranberries

Fort Langley Cranberry Festival 2021

When: Saturday, October 9, 2021 rain or shine 10:00am to 4:00pm
Where: Fort Langley, BC (9160 Glover Rd, Langley)
Admission: Free, enjoy the village and support local business. RSVP on Facebook for info.

This year’s festival will be held on a smaller scale, with a reduced capacity, to ensure the health and safety of vendors and festival-goers. Festivities begin at 10:00am on the field located at the corner of Glover Road and Mary Avenue. Fresh local berries will be available again, at the Fort Langley Community Hall, along with the Lion’s Club Pancake Breakfast.

There will be over 60 market place vendors, 10 food trucks, kids activities, live music and craft beer. One of the highlights of the Cranberry Festival is always the outstanding selection of products from the 60+ market vendors. From jewelry, specialty foods, fresh local produce to hand-made crafts, there is something for everyone.

About BC Cranberries

  • The cranberry is one of only three commercially-grown fruits that are native to North America.
  • Traditionally, cranberries were popular trading commodities at Fort Langley as local First Nations used them for food, dyes, and medicine. In 1858, cranberries were valued more highly than salmon in these trades.
  • Of all the cranberries harvested in Canada every year, about 60% are grown for Massachusetts-based Ocean Spray, to which most BC cranberry growers belong as a cooperative — as a result 90% of BC cranberries are shipped to the USA.
  • Approximately 50% of BC’s crop is used to make sweetened dried cranberries, 40% is made into juice, 9% is sold whole frozen and 1% is sold fresh, according to the Government of BC.

The Cranberry Festival was started in 1995 to celebrate the annual harvest and the history of the cranberry in the area and Fort Langley’s earlier years.

Related: Read about the time I toured a cranberry bog!

Boarder X at the Museum of Vancouver

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Boarder X at the Museum of Vancouver, a traveling exhibition which opened on October 1st, reveals skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing as vehicles that challenge conformity and status quo.

Boarder X at the Museum of Vancouver
Boarder X at the Museum of Vancouver – Images submitted

Boarder X at the Museum of Vancouver

When: On view at MOV until October 1, 2022.
Where: Museum of Vancouver (1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver)
Admission: Purchase online in advance or on site

Originally exhibited at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2016, Boarder X features work by contemporary artists from Indigenous nations across Canada including Amanda Strong, Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Jordan Bennett, Meagan Musseau, Roger Crait, Steven Davies, Mark Igloliorte, Mason Mashon, Meghann O’Brien, Colonialism Skateboards in collaboration with Kent Monkman, and Les Ramsay.

“A museum needs people to be relevant. The Boarder X exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity for MOV to connect with Indigenous, and other youth, within the city of Vancouver. We were so pleased to have the opportunity to include a mini half pipe in the gallery space, where we can use it year-round for community engagement and add another level of animation to the gallery space.” – Sharon Fortney, Curator of Indigenous Culture and Engagement, Museum of Vancouver

Included from the MOV collections are works by contemporary Indigenous artists K.C. Hall, Olivia George, Skokaylem Zac George, and Takeover Skateboarding as well as older works by unknown Indigenous artists.

The exhibition, which recently was recognized for outstanding achievement by the Canadian Museums Association (“CMA”), reflects cultural, political, environmental, and social perspectives related to the landscapes and territories we occupy. Examining contested spaces, political borders, hybrid identities, and traditional lands, the artwork draws parallels to urban areas prohibiting skateboarding, ski runs unwelcome to snowboarders, and surfers’ constant search for uncrowded waves.

Boarder X also showcases how art can be inclusive and transformative, by bridging the present – the passion that many Indigenous youth have for skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding – with the past, which weaves together paintings, carvings, photography, video and textiles that shine a spotlight on cultural, political, and environmental issues.

Through financial support from Vans Canada, MOV was able to build 2 quarter pipes within the exhibition space. This mini ramp with be activated throughout the year for workshops, and public engagement events. MOV is partnering with local community groups, Nations Skate Youth and Takeover Skateboarding, to create opportunities for public programming and youth involvement and engagement within the exhibition. Once the exhibition closes the 2 quarter pipes will be donated to a community group for ongoing use.

Watch the Exhibition Opening Online

For more information on the exhibition and to book tickets, visit the Museum of Vancouver online.

How BC Place Will Light Up Green for World CP Day

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Disclosure: Sponsored Post — Sponsored by Cerebral Palsy Association of BC Please review the Policy & Disclosure section for further information.

BC Place is one of over 15 BC landmarks lighting up green for World CP Day on October 6th. To find out just how that will happen, Cerebral Palsy Association of BC (“CPABC”) spokesperson Marco Pasqua and I met up with a member of the lighting team to see just exactly how that will work. Long story short: With a tap of an iPhone!

BC Place Lighting for CP-3

Setup on the False Creek Seawall across the water from the stadium, Lighting Programmer Stefan Zubovic with Eos Lightmedia explained the software, the programming, and how it all comes together.

“Everything you see that’s video or operational, our team handles,” says Zubovic. “That goes for the maintenance of the lighting controller to the programming of new shows, to any kind of assistance the stadium needs with troubleshooting. We also provide some advice on best practices. A lot of the actual physical work is handled by the internal, stadium staff.”

BC Place Lighting for CP-3
Marco Pasqua (CPABC Spokesperson) and Stefan Zubovic (Eos Lightmedia) flip the switch!

Much of the software Zubovic and the Eos team use is free and can be downloaded online. Of course they also have access to the stadium’s secure VPN that allows them to control the light from almost anywhere, with a connection of course.

Watch Marco turn on the light here:

Aside from solid colours, you may have seen the stadium light up with a Union Jack when Sir Paul McCartney was in town, and when I was at BC Place the other day for the Whitecaps match I noticed animated hearts. So how do they achieve that level of detail?

The stadium roof façade – known as the Northern Lights Display – uses 1,700 ‘ETFE’ panels, stacked four rows high, and 6,800 linear feet of energy-efficient LED lights to create customizable lighting displays. “They are basically four foot long LED lights that have four pixels in them so every foot you can control different colours,” says Zubovic.

BC Place Lighting for CP-1
Showing off the pixels and panels in a “fireworks” display

On Wednesday, BC Place will be green for World Cerebral Palsy Day. This is a global movement of people with cerebral palsy and their families, and the organizations that support them, in more than 60 countries. The day is an opportunity to celebrate, raise awareness and take action to ensure that people with CP have the same rights, access and opportunity as anyone else in their communities.

You can support CPABC’s programs, equipment, therapies, and financial assistance for those with CP living in BC by donating today. If you spot a BC landmark glowing green tonight, take a photo and share on social media with the tag #BC4CP and follow CPABC on Instagram for more info.

Vancouver Writers Fest 2021

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The Vancouver Writers Fest will feature 115 extraordinary local and international authors in a combination of in-person, digital, and hybrid events from October 18-24, 2021. Digital events are available to viewers in a pay-what-you-can model, and some of them will be streamed in a comfortable cinema setting at The Nest on Granville Island. 

Vancouver Writers Fest 2021

Vancouver Writers Fest 2021

This year’s Guest Curator is Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner Lawrence Hill, who has arranged five events focused on Black and Indigenous writers. He will moderate a discussion about Caribbean literature with Cherie Jones and Myriam Chancy and interview award-winning poet Chantal Gibson. Other events feature some of the season’s hottest authors, including two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr, Indigenous author and playwright Tomson Highway, and powerhouse authors such as Mona Awad, Zoe Whittall, Rachel Yoder, Ian Williams, Darrel McLeod, Maria Stepanova, and Colm Tóibín.

With free events for youth (and family) speaking to themes of cultural identity, inclusion, healing from grief, and Indigenous storytelling, and digital events featuring Jordan Abel in conversation with Tanya Talaga, award-winning young adult author Caroline Adderson and powerhouse duo Tom Ryan and Robin Stevenson, there’s plenty to see at this year’s Festival.

Event Highlights

Poetry Events: Poets in Conversation, Word! (for youth and adults this year), The Intricate Craft of Poetry, or The Poetry Bash.

Fiction Events: The Spectacular Complexity of Womanhood with Mona Awad, Zoe Whittall, and Rachel Yoder, Complex Histories (Gary Barwin and Kathleen Winter), Kaleidoscope (Brian Selznick), On The Trapline (David A. Robertson), Good Reads (Shashi Bhat, Jael Richardson, and Lisa Bird-Wilson), Hook, Line, and Sinker (Carrie Jenkins, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Sam Wiebe), Marvellous Stories for YA (Susin Nielsen and Peyton Thomas), Caribbean Masterpieces (Myriam Chancy and Cherie Jones) or Blending Genres with Hiromi Goto, Harold R. Johnson, and Renée Sarojini Saklikar.

Non-Fiction Events: Journeys For Home (Kamal Al-Solaylee and Marcello Di Cintio), Out of the Sun (Esi Edugyan), Jordan Abel in Conversation with Tanya Talaga, Saga Boy: Antonio Michael Downing in Conversation with Barbara Chirinos or It’s Not Too Late: How We Can Still Fight the Climate Crisis (Arno Kopecky and J.B. MacKinnon).

Find all of these events and more in the online Vancouver Writers Fest program.

TransLink Rolls Out Free WiFi on Transit

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TransLink and Shaw Communications Inc. are launching free WiFi for customers on six RapidBuses, on three SkyTrains, at Edmonds Station, and at Carvolth Exchange. This is the beginning of a system-wide rollout that will provide free WiFi for TransLink customers on all buses, SeaBuses, SkyTrains, transit stations, and major transit hubs. TransLink expects the rollout will complete in 2026. 

TransLink Rolls Out Free WiFi on Transit
TransLink Submitted Image

TransLink Rolls Out Free WiFi on Transit

  • Free Shaw WiFi is already available on board SeaBuses and in SeaBus terminals for customers as part of a previous rollout from TransLink and Shaw.

Bringing WiFi to the transit system is part of their ongoing efforts to elevate the customer experience while we continue to welcome customers back to transit.

“We know that free WiFi is something our customers want, and I’m so excited to start delivering this important feature to elevate the customer experience,” says TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn. “Free WiFi means that our customers can use their transit time for leisure, work, or better connecting with family and friends without spending their money on data fees.”

This rollout will first prioritize activating WiFi on RapidBuses, SkyTrains, and 60-foot articulated buses to provide WiFi on the vehicles serving the most customers. TransLink and Shaw will then continue to install WiFi on vehicles until the whole fleet is equipped. 

“We are proud to partner with TransLink so its customers can stay connected when they are on buses, trains or in transit stations across the Lower Mainland,” said Katherine Emberly, President, Business, Shaw Communications. “Today’s announcement represents another milestone in our collective commitment to providing commuters with fast, seamless WiFi connectivity that they can enjoy for free across TransLink’s system.”

Posters and signage will be on display on vehicles and at transit hubs with WiFi to make customers aware of its availability and to provide clear instructions on how to connect to WiFi during their transit journey. To find out how to use WiFi and to see progress updates on the system’s WiFi installation over time, visit the TransLink WiFi info page.