Granville Island sits beneath the Granville Street Bridge on the south side of False Creek, connected to the rest of Vancouver by bridge and by the small ferry boats that cross from the Aquabus docks near the Convention Centre. It's about 15 hectares of what was once industrial wasteland — a sand bar dredged out in 1916 to create a manufacturing zone, home to sawmills, chain factories and cement plants until industrial decline set in during the 1960s. The federal government took over in the 1970s and began what became one of the better urban revitalisation projects in Canadian history.
The Public Market
The Public Market is the obvious starting point and it's worth the attention it gets. The indoor market runs daily (closed most Mondays in winter) and has roughly 50 permanent vendors selling produce, fresh fish, artisan cheese, hot food, baked goods, flowers, and prepared items. The salmon vendor on the ground floor does a brisk business in vacuum-packed smoked salmon that travels well as a gift. The produce vendors have better-than-supermarket quality and prices that reflect the location but are not outrageous. The hot food vendors — there are several — are where to find lunch: chowder, crepes, Ukrainian perogies, Japanese noodles and various other options that vary by the day.
The market gets genuinely crowded on weekend afternoons. Come on a weekday morning for a noticeably more relaxed experience. The covered outdoor seating area on the water side of the market, looking across False Creek to the West End and the mountains beyond, is one of the better places to eat lunch in Vancouver.
The Studios and Galleries
What most tourists miss is that Granville Island has over 300 artists and craftspeople working in studios spread across the island. Many of those studios are open to visitors — you can watch glass blowers, potters, weavers, printmakers, metal smiths and bookbinders at work, and buy directly from the people who made the pieces. The cluster around the Net Loft building and the studios along Cartwright Street are the most concentrated. This is the part of Granville Island that feels genuinely unlike anything else in the city.
The Breweries
Granville Island Brewing, founded in 1984, was one of the first craft breweries in Canada and still operates on the island with a brewpub and retail store. The tasting room is open daily for flights and pints. The Island Lager is a solid session beer that pairs appropriately with the waterfront setting. Several other small producers have set up on the island since, adding to the options for a waterfront afternoon drink.
Emily Carr University
The Emily Carr University of Art + Design occupies a major building on Granville Island and runs regular gallery exhibitions that are free and open to the public. The student work shown during thesis exhibitions in late April and May is consistently interesting, and the permanent collection in the lobby and corridors is worth seeing. The university has produced a significant proportion of British Columbia's working artists and designers, and the calibre of the work reflects that.
The Kids Market
If you're travelling with children, the Kids Market is a two-storey building entirely dedicated to toys, activities and entertainment — 25 child-focused shops in one building. It's reliably popular with families and well worth knowing about for the inevitable "we need somewhere to take the kids" afternoon.
The best time to experience Granville Island is a weekday morning when the market is fresh, the studios are open, and the outdoor seating areas are half-empty. Sit with a coffee from the market, watch the seaplanes taking off from the harbour, and remember that this was an industrial wasteland fifty years ago. The transformation is worth thinking about.
Leave a Comment