Strathearn Art Walk: Edmonton’s Free Art Market on the River Valley Edge
Fourteen years of artists, food trucks and live music along one residential street above the river valley. Free, and easier to get to than you think.
Strathearn Art Walk is what happens when a residential street decides to become a gallery for a weekend. Artists set up along Strathearn Drive, bands play, food trucks park up, and several thousand people walk the length of it looking at work they can afford to take home.
What it is
An outdoor art market and music festival, held every September on the streets of Strathearn, on the south rim of the river valley. The work runs from painting and ceramics to jewellery, printmaking and photography, and much of it is sold directly by the person who made it.
It is run by the Strathearn Art Walk Society, a non-profit, and built around three stated values: community, opportunity and sustainability. In practice that means a good share of the space goes to emerging artists rather than only the established ones who can afford a booth anywhere.
Where it came from
The festival started in 2012, which makes 2026 its fourteenth year. It has stayed deliberately small and residential rather than moving somewhere with more parking, and that is most of its character: you are walking past people’s front gardens, not around a fairground.
What a visit looks like
Plan on wandering rather than arriving for something. The market runs the length of the street, with live music through the afternoon and evening, food trucks, and beer gardens for those who want one. It is genuinely family-friendly, and the pace suits a stroller or a slow walk.
Friday evening is the quietest and the easiest to talk to artists. Saturday is the long day and the busiest. Sunday afternoon winds down early.
What it costs
Nothing. Entry is free, and has always been free. You pay only for what you eat, drink or buy, and most of the art is priced for people who came out for a walk rather than collectors.
Worth knowing before you go
It is a residential street, so parking is street parking and it fills. Coming by bus or bike is genuinely easier.
Bring cash as well as a card. Some artists take one and not the other.
It sits on the river valley edge, so the light in the late afternoon is the reason photographers keep coming back.
When it runs
In 2026 the Art Walk runs from 11 to 13 September: Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. Dates shift year to year, and the society publishes them at strathearnartwalk.com.
It is one of several things worth leaving the house for this month. The rest are in our guide to what is on in Edmonton for the rest of September.