Granville Island is a peninsula of old industrial sheds under a motorway bridge that somehow became the best afternoon in Vancouver. There is still a working cement plant on it. There is also a public market, a brewery, about a dozen galleries and a fleet of tiny ferries, and the whole thing takes half a day.
This is the loop I walked on 28 April 2023, with the timings off the photographs and the prices off the boards, plus what has changed since.
15:51 — The Ferry In
Two separate companies run the little ferries across False Creek, and they are not the same service. False Creek Ferries has been running since 1982 and is the one that goes to Vanier Park for the Maritime Museum; Aquabus covers more of the downtown side — Hornby Street, Yaletown, Olympic Village. Both stop at Granville Island. Whichever one is at the dock is the right one.
What the board said in April 2023 (photograph above): Aquatic Centre $3.75 one way / $6.50 return; David Lam Park $4.00 / $6.50; Yaletown, Stamp’s and Spyglass $5.25 / $9.00; Maritime Museum $6.00 / $9.50; Village & Plaza $7.25 / $12.50. Sightseeing cruises ran $9.50 for 20 minutes and $12.50 for 40. A day pass was $18 adult, $16 child or senior.
What it costs now: budget more. Single adult fares now run roughly $4.25 to $12 depending on distance, and the day pass has gone from $18 to about $22 ($19 child and senior). If you are making more than two hops it still pays for itself; for a straight there-and-back it does not.
You pay on board — cash, card, tap, Google and Apple Pay all work. There is no barrier and no machine to queue at. Route 1 to the Aquatic Centre runs every five minutes; the others every fifteen.
15:52 — The Public Market
The market is the reason most people come, and it is genuinely free to walk into — no ticket, no turnstile.
Inside it is a shed, and it still reads as one: heavy timber posts, an exposed roof structure, painted steel beams. That is not styling. Granville Island was dredged out of the sandbars of False Creek in 1915 and called Industrial Island; these buildings held rope works, equipment suppliers and foundries. Heavy industry mostly left in the 1970s and the Public Market opened in the shells in 1979. The crepe counter in that photograph has been trading since the same year.
Quick facts: Granville Island Public Market, 1661 Duranleau Street. Free entry, open daily from 9:00, closing between 18:00 and 19:00 depending on the season, shut on Christmas Day. Busiest between 11:00 and 14:00 at weekends; I was there mid-afternoon on a Friday and it was busy but walkable.
16:06 — What Things Actually Cost In There
This is the part every other Granville Island article leaves out. Prices, off the handwritten cards, in April 2023: B.C. salmon puff pastry $5.10 each, salmon with dill and spices. Vegan soya sage tofu rolls $5.10. Vegetarian samosa rolls alongside them, spinach tarts above.
Sweet side, same stall: Smartie chocolate chip cookies $2.50, white chocolate macadamia $2.75, vegan brownie with walnuts $4.25, vegan date oat bar with a hint of orange $4.25.
Two things follow from that. First, this is not an expensive lunch by Vancouver standards — two savoury pastries and a coffee lands around fifteen dollars. Second, the market is far better at grab-and-go than at sit-down: seating is limited, shared, and contested at peak times. Buy, then go outside and find a step.
For the record, I walked past all of the above and bought ice cream and a bag of fruit. Less a recommendation than a confession — but it is also the sensible move here. The produce stalls at the back are the cheapest thing in the building, and ice cream is the one item in the market that is actively improved by being eaten outside on a concrete step in the sun.
16:02 — The Step to Sit On
This one, on the waterfront side. You get the whole downtown skyline across False Creek, the marina in front of it, a Canadian flag for scale, and the twisted grey slab of Vancouver House on the right. There are benches along the rail and wide concrete steps down to the water, and at four in the afternoon in late April every one of them was occupied by somebody eating something out of a paper bag.
16:20 — Under the Bridge
Walk away from the market and the island gets more interesting, not less. The Granville Bridge runs directly over the top of it, and the space underneath has been given over to murals — this one for Granville Island Brewing, which has been on the island since 1984 and was Canada’s first modern microbrewery.
And the sign itself, bolted to the underside of the steel span. The banner below it was advertising an open house marking 100 years of cement production on the island — which is the detail that makes the place. Ocean Cement still operates here. Mixer trucks still come and go past the bakeries. It is not a heritage theme park; it is a working industrial site that rented out its spare sheds.
The signpost sums up the current tenant mix better than I can: yacht brokers, a children’s bookshop, a tribal rug dealer, a speech clinic, a gallery, an adventure-tour operator, and something called arithmetic. Nobody planned this.
21:28 — Back Across
Ferry back, and the evening belonged to the other side of the water. Vancouver stacks its towers right up against the shoreline, which means the view from almost anywhere downtown is other people’s windows, lit up, all the way to the mountains.
What I Would Change
Half a day is right. The island is small — you can walk its whole length in fifteen minutes. Trying to fill a full day means padding it out.
Go in the afternoon, not at lunchtime. The market peaks between 11:00 and 14:00. I arrived just before four and had room to move; by then some stalls are also discounting what they will not keep.
Eat outside. The indoor seating is the weakest part of the market. The steps facing False Creek are the best part of the island and they are free.
Take the ferry at least one way. It costs a few dollars, takes five minutes, and is the only way to arrive that makes sense of the geography. Walking or driving in under the bridge tells you nothing about where you are.
If you are putting a longer Canada route together, the other end of this trip was the Rockies — Banff in one day covers the gondola, the frozen lakes and Banff Avenue after dark.
The other Vancouver half-day worth doing is across the water and on two wheels: the Stanley Park seawall is a ten-kilometre one-way loop you can rent a bike for on the spot.
Prices and hours change — the ferry fares in my photographs are already out of date, as shown above. Check before you go.
