Best Free Places To Go In Vancouver: Steveston Village

Steveston Village is technically in Richmond, not Vancouver. It’s about a 30 minutes drive (on a good day) south of downtown Vancouver. It’s a neat place to go to because it’s a small community that’s rich in history.

Steveston is historically a fishing village. The tradition still lives on at the fisherman’s wharf. I love going down the dock to see what the commercial fishermen have for sale.

Seafood is typically sold here from late Spring to the end of Summer. Dungeness crabs are one of my favourites. Just look at this one!

I really admire commercial fishermen. The work is hard. They not only have to go out for the catch, but they come back and sell their catch to the markets and directly themselves. Many are small family businesses. Here’s a son helping his dad sell spotted prawns. It’s super fresh. They can offer the public better prices when we buy directly from them and they get to keep more of their profits. Always a better way to buy when it’s possible.

There are a lot of different kinds of fish for sale, too. This stall is a husband and wife team who have sold here for quite some time.

Sea Urchins. These look beautiful and I hear they are really delicious when you eat them super fresh. I’ve never had them before and asked the owner how to prepare them. She said that you basically just open them and you can just eat them fresh.

A beautiful commercial vessel docked. This one is bigger than most docked in the area. Perhaps to catch crabs? I don’t know.

This is my view from the end of the dock. It was a great summer day to come down here.

So what is good to eat around here? Almost all the restaurants in this vicinity have fish and chips. Probably not a big surprise. This one called Pajo’s is one of the most popular. Situated on a dock, you will almost always see a line-up when the weather is good. It’s a casual place where you order and wait for your food to be ready. You can take it away or sit to eat…if you can find a table.

The Gulf Of Georgia Cannery is a heritage museum now, but it was a working cannery. It was built in 1894 when canning fish for export was vitally important economically on the west coast. This began in the 1830’s when the Hudson’s Bay Company began commercial fishing. They salted fish in barrels for export. The technology for storing fish got better and this is one of the working canneries. You will still see inside of this building the machinery and process of how this was done.

There’s some great retro salmon posters around the cannery. Salmon was one fo the most important fish from the West Coast of Canada.

Here’s some nice artwork that depicts life around Steveston Village in the past and present. Many people worked and lived around here for many generations.

There are some really neat independent shops in the area. I especially like this British shop that carries some of the very hard to find British food imports. I went to London once after university. I really liked looking at all the different packaged foods that they had because it was so different from what we’re used to in Canada. I remember really liking something called Jaffa Cakes. Chocolate covered flat round vanilla cakes with an orange jelly filling. I couldn’t get enough of those. I found them here at this shop. However, my taste has changed and now I don’t like the orange and chocolate combination. Anyhow, this shop has some great finds.

Here’s a Canada Post that is kind of a replica of what a post office would be like in the community. This one is obviously modern, but it’s a working post office. You can really ship your packages out here!

Here I am testing the new backpack straps I designed. It’s a custom-add for any Modern Coup Bag. I added it onto the Medium Zipper Tote in charcoal grey. I like using a shoulder tote most of the time, but when I’m out (especially with my boys) I like a backpack option. I must say, I really like the convertible backpack option.

There’s a children’s art studio in the area.  These little painted bird houses caught my eye. Whoever decorated these did a very good job. It’s so important for kids to be creative and do some hands on art work. I must say, it’s getting tougher when digital options are competing for their attention.

Hope you  liked my little tour of Steveston Village. I’ll try to post more fun and free places to go. Thanks!