Bala Cranberry Festival

Cranberry Harvest in Muskoka

The Bala Cranberry Festival has been Muskoka's send-off to the season since 1984, and Saturday is its biggest day — full entertainment lineup, the streets busy, the harvest at its peak.

• 8:30am — Depart Toronto. We head north into cottage country as the fall colour comes up along Highway 400.
• 11:00am — Arrive in Bala. Our coach drops off at Ted Smith Construction on Muskoka Road 169, where the town shuttle takes us straight to the festival entrance gates. No walk from a distant lot and no parking scramble — accessible buses run this route too.
• 11:00am to 3:45 pm — The Bala Cranberry Festival. Five hours to work your way through one of Ontario's best juried arts and crafts shows, with more than 150 vendors spread across Maple Avenue, the Bala Arena and the Community Centre. There are food trucks, local musicians and buskers, a KidsZone with inflatables and games, and a reptile zoo. Buy fresh cranberries by the bag, try them dipped in candy, and stop for the cranberry crepes that Trinity All Saints Anglican Church has been serving for years on Bala Falls Road. Head down to Margaret Burgess Park for the Rotary Club's duck races — a Saturday-only tradition — held where Lake Muskoka pours into the Moon River at the falls. On your way through town, browse the Cranberry Portage Farmers Market at Portage Landing.
• 4:30pm — Muskoka Lakes Farm & Winery. Back on our coach for the short ride out to Johnston's Cranberry Marsh, three generations of cranberry growing since 1950. There's no public shuttle between town and the marsh, so having our own bus is what makes this half of the day possible at all. A tractor-pulled wagon carries us around the 12-acre South Marsh for a 20-minute guided look at how cranberries are grown and harvested. Mid-October is the tail end of the season, when the berries are often floated and beaten — the sea of red you've seen in the commercials. It's a working farm, so what's happening depends on the day, but you'll see cranberries in abundance either way. There's time afterward to browse the store for cranberry wine and preserves.
• 5:15pm — Depart for Toronto, with a bag of fresh berries and a bottle of cranberry wine for the ride home.

‍