From our calendar to yours comes this carefully considered agenda of cool things we are doing, wishing we could do, or conspiring to do in Vancouver from Thursday, October 2nd to Wednesday, October 8th, 2025. Please note that you can now get the Scout List – with a few extra pieces of intel included – sent to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up for your subscription here.

OPEN | Plan a visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery for Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama. This marks the first retrospective of work by the Japanese-Canadian documentary photographer, who was born in New Westminster in 1941, and whose “work tells stories of community, joy and resistance in the face of injustice.” (Wakayama died in 2018.) The exhibit includes images spanning his decades-long career, from early works documenting the US Civil Rights Movement, moving through to the 1960s/70s and the era’s various social justice movements and countercultures; as well as photos of Indigenous communities and the Doukhobors (Russian pacifist religious group) across Canada. The timeline wraps up closer to home, in Vancouver, with works featuring the Redress movement for Japanese Canadians. Enemy Alien opens on Friday, October 3rd and will be up on the VAG’s walls until February 22nd, 2026. DETAILS.

SCORE | Valley Buds Flower Farm sets up shop every Thursday in front of Budgie’s Burritos, bringing Squamish Valley-grown flowers and produce into Mount Pleasant. Run by Alana Paterson and Michelle Pezel, the market is your mid-week chance to stock up on local food, grab some flowers…and pair it all with a burrito. DETAILS

LEARN | Got kids? This month the Beaty Biodiversity Museum’s Nature Club turns its focus to fungi, lichens, and algae, pulling specimens from the herbarium to show just how much life is hiding in plain sight. From mushrooms and their underground networks, to lichens that live as symbiotic partnerships, and algae that stretch from single cells to 60-metre kelp – this is your chance to take a closer look at some of the most overlooked organisms in our ecosystems. And honestly, the timing couldn’t be better, since this is the season when forests are exploding with fungi and lichens pop against wet bark – a reminder of how alive everything can get in Autumn. DETAILS

PASTORAL | Running from October 1st through 14th, Gallery 881 is showing new work by Vancouver-based photographer and cinematographer Goran Basarić. Goran Basarić: City Pastoral – Leisure Time in the Liminal City traces decades of life along Vancouver’s seawall, where the city blurs into the Pacific. Shot with a vintage Soviet Horizon panoramic camera, the series stretches the shoreline into a stage where running, cycling, sitting, and simply being become larger than habit. Featuring 11 large-scale works, the exhibition is a meditation on Vancouver’s edge as both playground and threshold. DETAILS

COMMUNITY | Tucked quietly between the constant chaos of Prior Street and the emptiness of warehouses and train tracks to the south, Strathcona Community Garden has been a sanctuary for 40 years. A patchwork of plots, fruit trees, blackberry thickets, and benches worth sitting on, it’s a place that slows you right down. This Saturday, October 4th, the garden hosts its annual Harvest Festival from 10am–3pm. Expect cider pressing, tours, workshops, food samples, family-friendly activities, and a big ol’ celebratory cake. DETAILS

OCEAN | Got some extra time on Saturday afternoon? Bau-Xi Gallery is opening When You Were the Sea, a new body of work by BC artist Sheri Paisley. Drawing from her time spent in Ucluelet, the paintings translate fog, tide, and shifting weather into layered impressions of memory and presence. Built in translucent washes and palettes pulled from driftwood, kelp, and Pacific light, the works evoke the sensation of moving through a weather system rather than looking at static images. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, October 4th, and runs until Thursday, October 16th. DETAILS

LANTERNS | The Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival reaches its peak this Saturday, October 4th, with an evening tying together art, community, and the natural beauty of East Van. Events begin at 4pm with the Harvest Fair in Slocan Park, featuring music, artisans, puppetry, food stalls, and more. At sunset (6:45pm), the Twilight Lantern Procession winds through the neighbourhood into Renfrew Community Park, where the Streamside Lanterns installation (7:05–9pm) transforms Still Creek into a glowing landscape animated by over 50 artists and musicians. DETAILS

GATHER | The Mid-Autumn Festival returns with a multi-sensory celebration pulling in sound, scent, taste, touch and sight. Expect a lion dance, Cantonese opera, and live Guzheng performances, along with roaming dancers and magicians weaving through the pathways. Food and craft demos highlight the night — think mooncakes from SunGiven, incense stencilling, sugar arts, and mossball making — while lantern making, paper fan dipping, and interactive art installations keep things hands-on. As dusk settles in, bring your lantern and join the community walk through the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden under the full moon. DETAILS

FILM | Add The Golden Spurtle to your must-watch list at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. Directed by Constantine Costi, the documentary follows oat enthusiasts competing in the World Porridge Making Championships in Carrbridge, a village in the Scottish Highlands. With sweeping backdrops, humour, and a cast of porridge devotees chasing the coveted award, it’s a warm portrait of community and tradition that makes you see a humble bowl of oats in a whole new light. Screenings run across the festival, starting Sunday morning, with additional screenings slated for Thursday, October 9th (6:15pm, International Village) and Sunday, October 12th (5:30pm, SFU Woodwards). DETAILS

MARKET | Take a trip out to downtown Abbotsford for the Misfit Market, this Sunday, October 5th. Popping up inside of Remedy Studio (210 2556A Montrose Avenue) for one afternoon only, expect ten uniquely oddball vendors selling their stuff – from ceramics, stickers and art, to chainmail jewelry and rock n’ roll-inspired threads – curated by Heavy Strut Apparel. It’s the time of year to get in touch with your dark side. DETAILS