Grave Tales at Fort Langley

Grave Tales is Fort Langley’s Halloween tradition for people who would rather hear a true story in the dark than walk through a haunted house. Parks Canada interpreters lead small groups by lantern light through the Hudson’s Bay Company fort and the village around it, telling the stories of fur-trade workers and early villagers. Some are documented history and some are ghost stories. Groups are capped at 20 or 25 and the tours tend to sell out, so this is one to book in September, not on the night.

When it happens each year

Always in October, after dark, with dates that change from year to year:

• 2026: October 16 to 31
• 2025: October 18 to 26 (tickets went on sale September 19)
• 2023: October 13 to 29, Fridays to Sundays
• 2022: October 14 to November 6 (registration opened September 7)

Parks Canada posts the new year’s tours on the fort’s events calendar, and we add them to What’s On when they appear.

The four tours (2026)

• Youth Grave Tales. 6 to 7:30 pm on two Saturdays, $24.58, ages 8 and up. Every child needs an adult 18 or older, and the adult books and pays for their own spot too. It’s pitched at kids but still includes stories of injury and death.
• Spirit of the Place. 7 to 8:30 pm, $24.58, 18+. Staff and visitors’ own reports of strange goings-on, told where they happened. It starts by the fire in one of the fort’s buildings and stays inside the walls, with a few stops where you can sit. It’s the least walking of the four, and in 2025 Parks Canada listed it as the accessible tour.
• Graves of the Tradesmen. 8 to 10 pm, $31.58, 18+. It begins with the fort’s blacksmith at the forge, then heads out on a 4 km walk through the village, standing and walking outdoors the whole way.
• Descent into Darkness. 9 pm to midnight, $44.97, 18+. The longest and grimmest of the four. Parks Canada warns of graphic content, including suicide, murder and 1800s medicine, and says some of the stories are shared with the permission of descendants.

How to book

You make an account on Parks Canada’s reservation platform and request a tour. In 2026, staff then got in touch within 72 hours to take payment, and your spot only counts once you’ve paid, so enter your phone number carefully. If you cancel 48 hours or more ahead, you get a full refund; inside 48 hours you don’t. If Parks Canada cancels for severe weather or a power outage, you get your money back. Arrive 15 minutes early to check in. Bring an umbrella and sturdy shoes, and leave the dog at home: only service animals are allowed.

Parking. The 2026 page says parking is free in the fort’s main lot for tour-goers. The lot’s posted hours are 7 am to 11 pm, and the late tour ends at midnight, so if you’re booked on Descent into Darkness, ask where to park when Parks Canada calls to confirm.

Is it in the Fort Langley cemetery?

People search for “Fort Langley cemetery” in October, and with good reason. Parks Canada’s 2023 listing described the tour as a walk through three of the area’s burial grounds, and the 2020 tours went through the village’s cemeteries. The 2026 descriptions talk about the fort and a walk through the village without naming a cemetery, so check each year’s details if a graveside stop matters to you.

On your own, by daylight, you can visit both cemeteries. Fort Langley Cemetery on St. Andrews Avenue is the Township’s oldest, with gates open from 8 am to dusk. The Hudson’s Bay Company pioneer cemetery is beside St. George’s Church.

How it started

In 2022, a fort interpreter told the Fraser Valley Current that Grave Tales began about 17 years earlier, in the mid-2000s. Fort staff asked the community for ghost stories, expecting a few dozen, and got more than 2,000. They decided to tell only the ones that three or more people had reported separately. One staff favourite is the story of William Henry Emptage, an HBC man who lost a hand in a blasting accident and later farmed the land where Trinity Western University now stands. By the guides’ own account, about half of what they tell is documented fact.

The tours have kept changing. In 2016, adults 19 and over could add a night in a tent at the fort. In 2020, groups were cut to ten and tours were adults only. In 2022 there was a tour in French. By 2025 the program had settled into the four named tours.

Related pages

• Fort Langley National Historic Site: hours, admission and the rest of the fort’s year
• Halloween in Langley: everything else on in late October
• The haunted house map: decorated houses and scare walks around Langley
• Fort Langley Cranberry Festival, the village’s other big October day
• Langley’s annual events, month by month

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