Pitt Meadows guide
The First Warm Weekend of the Year
The first genuinely warm weekend arrives once a year and the whole city goes outside at the same moment. Where to go, what to do first, and why the bike should already be in working order.
Written by June Tam
There is a weekend most years, somewhere in early spring, when the temperature finally goes up and then stays up for two days running. Everyone in Pitt Meadows appears outside at the same moment. The dike is busy, the garden centres are busy, the coffee lineup is longer than it was the Saturday before, and half the people you pass are in shorts on a day that does not really justify them.
It is a good town for that weekend. The whole place is flat, the dikes run for miles, and you are never far from farmland. It is also worth a small amount of planning, because the first warm Saturday is the day everyone else in the city remembers that their bike has a flat tire.
Deal with the bike before the weekend, not during
Get the bike in to Pitt Meadows Cycle before the forecast turns rather than after, if it has been leaning in the shed since the fall. Bike shops get hit all at once in the first warm stretch of the year, and the work you could have booked in the quiet months becomes a wait once the sun arrives. This is the flattest city you could ask for, which means almost anyone can ride here, and the dike network will carry you further than you expect before you notice you have gone anywhere.
Where to actually go
Osprey Village at the south end is the obvious answer, and it is the obvious answer for good reason. The dike trail along the Fraser runs right past it, the shopfronts sit under the townhouses so you can get from the trail to a table without moving the car, and the South Bonson Community Centre is right there with the Pitt Meadows Art Gallery inside it if the sky turns on you.
Drive north over the Alouette into Pitt Polder for something that does not feel like a neighbourhood walk. This is the farmland that was diked and pumped dry after the Second World War and leased out in hundred-acre parcels to Dutch immigrant dairy families, and it still reads that way from the road. Rannie Road runs north toward Grant Narrows and Pitt Lake, and the Pitt Polder Ecological Reserve is up there as well. Take a jacket regardless of what the thermometer said in town. The wind coming off the water has its own opinion.
Coffee first, obviously
The Coffee Pitt is the one I use when the plan is to keep moving and I want something in my hand for the trail. Stomping Grounds Cafe & Bistro is where I go when the plan is to sit down, which on the first warm weekend tends to expand into most of the morning. Either way, go early. The gap between quiet and busy on that particular Saturday is not a wide one.
The garden centre trap
Two days of sun convinces the entire city that it is planting season. It usually is not, and one warm weekend proves nothing about the next three weeks. That said, this is the right time to go and look, and to buy the things that will not be undone by a cold night. Amsterdam Garden Centre and Partab Farm & Nursery are both worth the trip. Meadows Landscape Supply is the call when the job is soil, mulch or gravel rather than plants. Work out roughly how much you need before you go, because everyone underestimates soil.
Food, and the market question
The Pitt Meadows Farmers Market is a seasonal one, and its first day of the year is the real sign that the season has turned. The day, the dates and the location are set by the organisers and can shift, so check with the market or the city before you build a Saturday around it rather than assuming last year's details still hold.
For the end of the day, Sweet Tooth Creamery is the correct answer if there are children involved, and honestly it is the correct answer if there are not. The Jolly Coachman Pub handles the other version of that evening, the one where the ride went longer than intended and nobody wants to cook.
The only real advice
Go out on the first warm day, not the second. In a place this exposed to weather, waiting for a better one is how you spend an entire spring indoors. The forecast here is a suggestion, the ground stays wet far longer than people expect, and the dikes are almost as good in a light drizzle as they are in sun. But there is only one first warm weekend in a year, and it is worth clearing a morning for.
From the directory
Mentioned in this article
Every place named above has its own page here, with the address, the hours and the nearest station.
Amsterdam Garden Centre
Family run garden centre and greenhouse grower at Old Dewdney Trunk Road and Harris Road, open daily year round. Sells bedding plants, hanging baskets, perennials, trees, house plants, soils and garden tools.
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Meadows Landscape Supply
Landscape supply yard on Kennedy Road selling bulk topsoil, bark mulch, aggregate, sand and decorative rock, plus paving stones, retaining wall block and artificial turf. Delivers across the Lower Mainland and runs a landscape material recycling centre.
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Partab Farm & Nursery
Local plant nursery and blueberry farm on the Lougheed Highway. Sells a range of plants and trees from its garden centre, with freshly picked seasonal blueberries through the summer.
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Pitt Meadows Cycle
Full service bike shop on Lougheed Highway selling road, mountain, electric, hybrid and kids bikes, plus components, helmets, apparel, lights and locks. Repairs and services bikes and runs mechanic courses. Closed Mondays.
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Pitt Meadows Farmers Market
Seasonal outdoor market at Spirit Square beside City Hall, running Tuesday afternoons from 2pm to 6pm, June through late September. Local produce, farm goods, baking and small food producers, run by the non-profit Fraser North Farmers Market Society.
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Stomping Grounds Cafe & Bistro
Family run riverfront cafe and bistro in Osprey Village, open since 2011. Homemade baked goods, organic coffee, paninis, breakfast sandwiches and hot lunches, with a patio facing the park and river trail. Also caters.
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Sweet Tooth Creamery
Osprey Village ice cream shop serving hand scooped ice cream, gelato and sorbetto, plus frozen yogurt, ice cream cakes and take home tubs. It also runs an ice cream trailer for markets, festivals and private events.
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The Coffee Pitt
Independent coffee shop on Harris Road serving espresso and drip coffee, fresh sandwiches and house baked goods including their cinnamon buns, daily from 8am to 5pm. The room can also be booked for small gatherings and events.
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The Jolly Coachman Pub
Neighbourhood pub on Ford Road serving Pitt Meadows since 1976. Traditional pub food, daily specials and a full bar, with a private liquor store attached to the same building. Licensed 19 plus, no minors.
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Who wrote this
Nell Vanderveen
Nell Vanderveen grew up on a blueberry farm north of the Alouette and lives near Osprey Village. She writes Pitt Meadows Local and walks the dike from Harris Road most mornings before the traffic starts.
