Fort Langley 2027 Bicentennial Committee

In February 2027 the street banners in Fort Langley village are planned to go up, ahead of BC Heritage Week, as the first public sign of the anniversary year. Two hundred years earlier, in 1827, the Hudson’s Bay Company opened a trading post on the Fraser River. The committee is the group of volunteers getting the village ready for it.

What we know

We could not find a website of the committee’s own or a published programme of events. What is public:

• It is asking for help. The Advance Times community calendar for October 28 lists the committee as needing volunteers “for various duties” and gives a contact name there. We have left the contact off this page because it is a private person’s address; the notice is the place to get it.
• It has a community partner. The Fort Langley Community Association is coordinating and paying for the banner project “in collaboration with the Fort Langley Bicentennial Committee,” in the association’s own words.
• The Legacy Foundation has talked about it. At the Langley Heritage Society’s Douglas Day Dinner in November 2025, a representative of the Fort Langley Legacy Foundation outlined plans to mark the 200th anniversary and said the hope was to involve a broad range of people from Indigenous and settler communities, per the society’s write-up. The foundation has been around a while: the Governor General’s heraldry register records a grant of arms to it dated March 23, 1992.
• Official branding is not out yet. The banner call says the chosen design may be adjusted to include official bicentennial branding “when available”.

The banner call

The association wants original artwork on the theme “Fort Langley 1827–2027 | Past, Present and Future”. It does not need to be a historical scene; the call says contemporary, abstract and imaginative work is welcome, and it acknowledges that the history of these lands and waters reaches well beyond 1827.

• Who can enter: artists and designers from the Township of Langley, the City of Langley and Kwantlen Nation, emerging or established.
• Size and shape: vertical, about 32 inches wide by 60.75 inches high.
• Money: $1,000 honorarium for the chosen design.
• Deadline: Monday, November 30, 2026, at 5 pm, by email, with “2027 Street Banner Art Competition” in the subject line. The address and the full guidelines (a PDF) are on the association’s page.
• After that: judging in December, the artist announced in January 2027, banners installed in February 2027.

Why 1827

Fort Langley’s own story starts before the fort. James McMillan led a 40-man Hudson’s Bay Company expedition north from the Columbia River in fall 1824 to scout a site for a Pacific coast headquarters, and that trip led to the post at Derby Reach in 1827, according to the Heritage Society. Parks Canada describes the fort as built in 1827, a fur-trading post on the Fraser at the centre of a large Indigenous population. The Heritage Society dates the declaration of British Columbia to 1858.

If you want to see the place now, our Fort Langley National Historic Site page has the visiting details, and the Langley Heritage Society covers the village’s other heritage buildings. Separately, the Township has said permanent exhibits at its new Fort Langley museum, salishan Place by the River, are planned for 2027.

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