From foghorns to crow commutes: Here's how the sounds of Vancouver change in fall
Vancouver doesn’t just look different in the fall, it sounds different too.
Once the rain sets in, the city takes on a whole new mood. From the harbour to the SkyTrain, here are the unmistakable sounds that make up Vancouver’s fall soundtrack.
The sounds of transit
In 2020, TransLink released a video called The Sounds of Transit that stitched together the noises Vancouver commuters know best: SkyTrain doors chiming, brakes screeching on wet tracks, and the familiar station announcements.
And of course, that rising mmmMMMmmmmm as the Expo Line pulls out of a wet station, as familiar to commuters as the door tones, is the unofficial theme song of a rainy Vancouver fall.
Foghorns over Burrard Inlet
Freighters and tugs bellow through the harbour on grey mornings, their sound rolling across Coal Harbour and the North Shore. It’s a fall constant in Vancouver, and not everyone loves it.
Back in 2017, Daily Hive also reported on how thick fog led to nearly round-the-clock foghorn blasts, keeping residents awake from the West End to UBC. Social media at the time was full of sleepless Vancouverites venting, “That foghorn needs to stfu I want to sleep,” one wrote, while another called it a “foghorn symphony.”
The noise may drive some people mad, but it’s also a reminder that Vancouver is home to Canada’s busiest port.
Under international maritime rules, which Canada enforces through the Canada Shipping Act, those blasts are a safety measure, a way for ships to announce their presence in low visibility.
Like it or not, it’s part of the city’s autumn soundtrack.
The crow commute
Every evening in fall, tens of thousands of crows take to the sky in what locals call the “crow commute.”
Around dusk, you can hear their caws building over East Vancouver before they funnel east toward their massive roost near Burnaby’s Still Creek.
According to Still Moon Arts Society and local bird researchers, nearly 20,000 crows gather each winter at Still Creek in Burnaby, one of the largest urban roosts in North America.
For Vancouverites, the crow commute is as much a seasonal marker as the return of rain, a noisy, chaotic, and strangely comforting part of the city’s autumn soundtrack.
Rogers Arena on game night
Canucks Sports & Entertainment
Hockey season is a key part of Vancouver’s fall soundtrack.
Game nights at Rogers Arena, the roar inside, car horns on Georgia, blur into the city’s rhythm.
This year, the Canucks kick off the 2025-26 season at home on Oct. 9 against the Calgary Flames. Then on Oct. 28, former Canuck J.T. Miller returns with the New York Rangers.
Even if you’re not inside the arena, the noise finds its way into the streets, a reminder that in Vancouver, fall means hockey.
The Nine O’clock Gun
Every evening in Stanley Park, the historic cannon cuts through drizzle and fog with a single boom.
The 12-pound naval gun, installed in 1894, once helped fishermen in Burrard Inlet set their watches. Today, it’s fired electronically at 9 p.m., a ritual that echoes across Coal Harbour, the West End, and even the North Shore mountains.
But when the gun goes quiet, Vancouverites notice.
Daily Hive previously reported in January 2023 that the cannon fell silent while the Park Board awaited a shipment of black powder, sparking quick online reactions from locals lamenting the absence of the boom.
Like the foghorns or the crow commute, the Nine O’clock Gun is part of Vancouver’s daily rhythm, startling if you’re new, familiar if you’ve lived here a while, and always a clear note in the city’s fall soundtrack.
What about you, what sound says “fall in Vancouver” to you? Tell us in the comments.
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