What to Do in Richmond on the Labour Day Long Weekend

The Labour Day long weekend lands on the first weekend of September, and Richmond enters it with a strange piece of news hanging over everything: after twenty-some summers, the Richmond Night Market has announced this is its final season, with a last day of September 20. Which means the long weekend is no longer just the long weekend. It is one of the last chances anyone gets.

Expect that to show up on the ground. The market runs Friday through Sunday nights at Bridgeport, plus statutory holiday Mondays, and the crowds that used to spread across a whole season are going to compress into its remaining weekends. Go with a plan: arrive near opening instead of mid-evening, eat in two rounds instead of one heroic circuit, and accept that you are sharing the food stalls with everybody who saw the same headline. The holiday Monday itself is a scheduled operating night too, 7pm to 11pm per the market's own 2026 hours, so budget for a fourth night if you are chasing this one down before it closes for good.

Everything else below is the quieter half of the weekend, and honestly the better half if lines are not your sport.

The Cannery, free until Monday

The Gulf of Georgia Cannery sits on the Steveston waterfront and Parks Canada has waived admission there since June, which ends September 7. That makes Labour Day Monday the last free day, and it makes the whole weekend the right time to finally walk through the building whose roofline is in every photo of this town ever taken. Inside is the original canning line, the reduction machinery that turned fish into a smell people three neighborhoods away complained about, and enough interpretation about the Chinese, Japanese, European and Indigenous workers who ran this coast that you will leave knowing why Steveston exists at all. It opens at ten. On a holiday Monday, arrive near opening or accept company.

If you only do one paid-thing-turned-free thing this weekend, make it this one. The free window closes with the weekend.

Britannia on its last daily day

A short walk along the boardwalk, Britannia Shipyards keeps summer hours daily ten to five straight through September 7, then drops to a shortened week for the fall. So this is also the last Monday you can wander the Murakami House, the net loft and the boatworks on any day of the week you please. The grounds cost nothing and always have. Down at the wharf beside it, fishing boats still sell off the deck when there is a catch to sell, cash preferred, cooler useful, schedule nonexistent by design.

The Seine Net Loft has been closed for repairs since June and still was as of late August, so do not build hopes around that particular building. Everything else is running.

Garry Point does its September thing

Labour Day weekend is when Garry Point Park quietly changes seasons. The sun starts dropping earlier, the wind comes off the Strait with an edge the July version did not have, and the grass slope fills with families who know that this is the last long weekend where an evening on the rocks feels like summer instead of a farewell tour. Bring the layer the afternoon did not seem to require.

Pair it with the West Dyke Trail if you want distance: flat, open, unbothered, and in early September light it is the best free scenery this city produces without trying.

Eating around the crowds

The Night Market will feed you adventurously and expensively in small increments. For the rest of the weekend the village handles it properly. Pajo's Fish & Chips floats at the wharf and draws a line on a wet Tuesday, so on this weekend treat it as a commitment. Dave's Fish & Chips up in the village has chairs, a heavier batter, and my loyalty when family visits. When both lines go sideways, Garry Point Grill & Fish 'N' Chips sits near the park end and absorbs the overflow calmly.

For sitting down rather than eating standing: Blue Canoe Waterfront Restaurant upstairs at the wharf, Shady Island Seafood Bar & Grill when the patio is the point, and Catch Kitchen + Bar for a proper warm-night dinner. Britannia Brewing Steveston remains the most reliable place to park a group of overheated adults while the sunset does its slow work. Children will require ice cream; Screamers Soft Serve & Treats and Timothy's Frozen Yogurt split that duty the way they always have.

The Monday fine print

Labour Day Monday is a statutory holiday. City facilities run reduced schedules, libraries close, and the buses that normally shuttle from Brighouse down to Steveston run at holiday frequency, which means slower and gappier than you want. Nothing here depends on a facility being open except the Cannery and Britannia, both confirmed for Monday. For everything else, phone ahead rather than trust a stat-holiday assumption.

And one practical warning from someone who lives here: between the market's farewell crowds at Bridgeport and the usual Steveston pull, this is a walking-and-cycling weekend, not a driving one. Park once, walk everywhere, and let the people in the circling cars keep the stress.