What to Do in Chilliwack on the Labour Day Long Weekend

The Labour Day long weekend is the weekend Chilliwack's summer has been building toward and the weekend it quietly ends in. Three things are true at once: the farm at Greendale is throwing its biggest party of the season, Cultus Lake is running its last full-throttle stretch of waterpark weather, and half the city is pretending to think about back-to-school shopping. Here is how I would spend it, with the details I could actually verify rather than the ones I remember from other years.

Greendale Acres goes out loud

The Summer Send Off Festival runs all three days, September 5 through 7, at Greendale Acres on Yale Road West, and this year the farm has published real hours for it: ten in the morning until nine on Saturday, until eight Sunday, and until six on the holiday Monday. Admission is nineteen dollars online or twenty-two at the gate, kids under two and seniors over seventy-five get in free, and that covers the corn maze, the u-pick flowers, the farm animals, and a daily lineup of live music that ends with Tanner Olsen Band at seven thirty Saturday night. There are watermelon-eating contests at twelve thirty and three thirty daily, face painting in the afternoons, and a licensed outdoor bar on the weekend days from noon.

Two notes from somebody who has done fall farms on long weekends: buy online, because the gate line at eleven is where good moods go to die; and the maze gets genuinely busy after two, so if you want the corn to yourself, do it first and let the music be your afternoon.

The corn maze itself is in its twenty-seventh year, which by local corn standards makes it an institution, and it runs daily through the end of October regardless of the festival.

Cultus Lake, honestly assessed

Cultus Lake Waterpark is open, every slide returned to service after this summer's June closure, with only the hot tubs still listed as unavailable for the rest of the season. Check the banner on their homepage the morning you go.

That is the fair way to put it. The park shut down for about six weeks after the June electrical incident, reopened in phases through late July, and had every slide back with regulatory sign-off by late August according to their official statements page. The province inspected; the operators have published more disclosure than most attractions would. If your crew loved the big slides, they are all running, Radical Rapids included. Only the hot tubs stay dark for the rest of the season.

Practicalities confirmed by the park: ten dollars parking at the exit toll, no re-entry, outside sealed snacks welcome, lockers available. Adventure Park next door is open daily rain or shine with rides and mini golf under one admission. The provincial park beach is free, sandy, and buoyed for swimming, but read the safety signs properly, because the drop-off near shore is steep and sudden and BC Parks is not being dramatic about it.

The rest of the board

Monday has two quieter options. The Send a Kid to Camp charity car show runs September 7 at Chilliwack Alliance Church on Young Road, listed on the church's own page as its Car Show and Autocross event; hours were not published there, so call ahead. The Chiefs do not open their season until Saturday, September 19, when they host the Coquitlam Express at the Coliseum, so save that one for two weekends out rather than Monday night.

If your weekend instinct runs toward riverbanks instead, the Vedder River Rotary Trail is flat, shaded in stretches, and doing its best work right now. One caution: fishing regulations on the Vedder change in-season based on salmon returns, and I could not confirm what is open this weekend. Check the DFO notices before you gear up rather than learning riverside.

Eating around it

A long weekend of farms and water parks is a long weekend eaten outdoors or not at all. For the sit-down versions, the places this directory's restaurant guide covers downtown and on Vedder Road will all be busy between six and eight, so book or shift your dinner hour. Coffee before a Cultus run matters more than people admit in August; the lines at the usual spots on Vedder stretch by nine both weekend days.

The Monday fine print

City facilities observe the stat holiday, transit fares are changing this month and some summer routes have already ended, so check the current schedule before counting on a bus to the lake. Everything above that carried a date, a price, or an hour came from the operators' own pages as of late August; anything I could not confirm, I said so instead of guessing. That is the deal with this list.