Celebrating regional flavors, seasonal harvests, and culinary traditions through festivals that bring communities together.
Sugar shacks across Ontario and Quebec open for cabane à sucre experiences. Enjoy tire sur la neige (maple taffy on snow), pancake breakfasts, and traditional meals drenched in fresh maple syrup.
Notable Events: Elmira Maple Syrup Festival (ON), Festival Beauce-Carnaval (QC), Sugarbush Maple Syrup Festival (ON)
Maritime communities celebrate peak lobster season with suppers, boils, and festivals. PEI's lobster suppers are legendary, offering all-you-can-eat feasts in church halls and community centers.
Notable Events: PEI Lobster Suppers, Shediac Lobster Festival (NB), Pictou Lobster Carnival (NS)
Nova Scotia celebrates its famous wild blueberries with festivals featuring pies, jams, pancakes, and more. The small, intensely flavored berries are harvested from barrens across the province.
Notable Events: Oxford Blueberry Festival (NS), Wild Blueberry Weekend (NS)
Niagara and Okanagan wine regions celebrate grape harvests with wine tours, tastings, vineyard dinners, and grape stomping. Ice wine production begins as temperatures drop.
Notable Events: Niagara Wine Festival (ON), Okanagan Wine Festivals (BC), Ice Wine Festival (ON)
The world's largest outdoor rodeo features cowboy cuisine: beef on a bun, pancake breakfasts, and Alberta beef in every form. A celebration of ranching heritage and Western food culture.
Duration: 10 days in July, over 1 million visitors, hundreds of food vendors
Toronto's Garlic Festival celebrates all things garlic with vendors selling garlic braids, garlic ice cream, garlic cheese, and countless other garlic-infused products from Ontario farms.
Location: Artscape Wychwood Barns, Toronto
North America's largest street festival features Caribbean food from jerk chicken to roti to doubles. A celebration of Caribbean-Canadian culture through food, music, and parade.
Attendance: Over 1 million people, hundreds of food vendors
The world's largest winter carnival features traditional Quebecois comfort food, caribou (spiced alcoholic drink), and outdoor dining in -20°C temperatures. Beaver tails, poutine, and tourtière abound.
Duration: 17 days in February, attended by 400,000+ visitors
Communities across Canada celebrate harvest season with agricultural fairs, pumpkin festivals, apple cider tastings, and farm-to-table dinners featuring local autumn produce.
Notable: Thanksgiving harvest celebrations, corn mazes, apple picking events
The Okanagan celebrates cherry harvest with u-pick orchards, cherry pies, cherry wine, and cherry-themed events. Celebrates one of BC's signature fruits.
Location: Various Okanagan Valley locations
Celebrating the unique ostrich fern fiddleheads found only in New Brunswick. Events include fiddlehead picking, cooking demonstrations, and tastings of this springtime delicacy.
Location: Various NB locations during fiddlehead season
Southern Ontario celebrates sweet corn season with festivals featuring corn on the cob, corn roasts, corn chowder, and corn mazes. Peak season runs August through September.
Notable: Taber Corn Fest (AB), various Ontario corn roasts
Community Suppers & Kitchen Parties: Maritime food culture centers on community gatherings. Church lobster suppers, community chowder feeds, and kitchen parties (informal home gatherings with music and food) maintain social bonds through shared meals. These events often feature local seafood, homemade pies, and traditional recipes passed through generations.
Cabanes à Sucre (Sugar Shacks): Quebec's sugar shack tradition transforms maple syrup production into cultural celebration. From March through April, families visit sugar shacks for traditional meals: ham, eggs, baked beans, pork rinds, pancakes—all drenched in fresh maple syrup. The meal concludes with tire sur la neige, hot maple syrup poured on snow to create taffy. Over 300 commercial sugar shacks operate in Quebec, many family-run for generations.
Multicultural Food Festivals: Toronto's diversity creates year-round festival schedule: Taste of the Danforth (Greek), Taste of Manila, Afrofest, Italian Week, Greek Week, Salsa Festival, Portuguese Festival, and countless others. Each celebrates a community's culinary heritage while sharing it with broader Toronto. These festivals have become essential to Toronto's identity as one of the world's most multicultural cities.
Agricultural Fairs & Stampedes: Prairie food culture celebrates agricultural heritage through fairs, stampedes, and exhibitions. These events feature livestock competitions, baking contests, preserve judging, and traditional prairie foods. Calgary Stampede represents the largest, but countless smaller fairs maintain connections to farming heritage across Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta.
Wine & Seafood Festivals: BC's wine regions host sophisticated harvest festivals, while coastal communities celebrate seafood through oyster festivals, salmon festivals, and seafood fairs. These events showcase BC's dual identity: agricultural excellence in the interior, maritime abundance on the coast.