Downtown Langley Mural Walk

You do not need a ticket, a guide or a sunny day. Here is how to do the Mural Walk properly.

1. Get the map on your phone

The Downtown Langley Business Association publishes a one-sheet brochure with a numbered map on top and a thumbnail of every mural underneath, with its address and artist. The City links the same file from its arts and culture page. Save it before you go; the lanes are easy, but a few murals hide round the back of buildings and the “tip” line on each entry (beside the tattoo shop, behind the diner, north wall of City Hall) saves a lot of squinting.

2. Start at McBurney Plaza

Mural number 1, Judy Pohl’s What Happens in the Garden at 20518 Fraser Highway, faces the plaza, and the densest cluster is right behind it on Salt Lane: Save the Bees, Enjoy Life, Beyond, Bright, Flower Power 2.0 and Little Birdie are all within a few doors of each other. One of them, Save the Bees, comes with an augmented-reality layer, per the brochure. Count on your first fifteen minutes disappearing here.

3. Work east along Fraser Highway

The stretch of Fraser Highway east of the plaza has the big ones: an octopus called Octopus Extraordinaire, a turtle called Turtski, Botanical Bliss and Spaghetti Anyone?, clustered around St. Andrews Plaza and the DLBA office at 20611 Fraser Highway. Keep going toward 208 Street for the two murals at 20869, Persevere and Return to Love, beside Rotary Centennial Park.

4. Loop back along Douglas Crescent

Cross to Douglas Crescent and head west past the Douglas Park Recreation and Child Care Centre (Fowl Territory), Olive Harvest at 20450, the murals tucked into Fuller Lane on both sides, and United Communities Are Safe Communities on the north-facing wall of City Hall and the Timms Community Centre. That last one is the crime-prevention mural in the City’s photo at the top of this page.

5. Finish west of 203 Street

Murals 26 to 32 are strung west of the plaza along Fraser Highway and 56 Avenue, out past 203 Street: Butterfly Freedom, Magical Doorway, Community Connected on 204 Street, Flower Power, Spencer’s Snack, Angel Wings (the wings are painted at shoulder height so you can stand between them) and Spread Kindness on 56 Avenue. End with a coffee; you have earned it.

Who paints them

Flip through the brochure and one name keeps coming up: Judy Pohl, credited on a dozen of the 32, alone or with collaborators. Alex Stewart has four. The rest are a roll call of local artists, each named with their wall in the brochure. The hashtag, if you are posting, is #muralwalklangley.

How the City adds to it

The walk grows because the City of Langley keeps commissioning. Two programs on its arts and culture page as of this autumn:

• Fall Street Banner Program. A call for emerging and established artists to submit original artwork, with the chosen pieces printed on the street banners along downtown poles.
• Douglas Park washroom building mural. A call for a permanent mural on the park’s washroom block.

Both calls are posted as PDFs on the arts and culture page, with [email protected] as the contact. The City also runs indoor space for artists: A Step Above Cultural Gallery on the second floor of the Timms (shows rotate every six weeks), the Community Gallery at the Douglas Recreation and Child Care Centre, the Free Little Art Gallery for youth, and the Walkway Gallery on the Timms’ main floor, which the Langley Arts Council manages. Current shows are listed on the City’s art galleries page.

Nearby

The map is a Downtown Langley Business Association project; the galleries are inside the Timms Community Centre. For the groups behind the art, see the Langley Arts Council and our Langley City guide.

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