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🏰 Canadian Medieval & Renaissance Events — Scholz’s Master List 2026 (with Official Sites & APA Citations)
Ontario
🧝 Robin in the Hood Medieval Festival — Elmira, ON (June 6–7 2026)
One of Ontario’s first festivals of the season, still teaching through play. What began in the late ’90s as a teacher’s dream now fills Elmira with archers, jesters, and moral pageantry. Its “Education Day” tradition continues — schoolkids learning history by laughter.
🌐 Official Site: robininthehood.com
APA Citation: Robin in the Hood Medieval Festival. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.robininthehood.com/
👑 The Royal Medieval Faire — Waterloo, ON (2026 Date TBA / last held Sept 20 2025)
Since 1998, Waterloo Park becomes a single-day kingdom of wit and pageant. University drama grads mingle with jesters and knights; Shakespearean improv meets small-town theatre magic. A civic ritual wrapped in chainmail and joy.
🌐 Info Page: therenlist.com
APA Citation: Royal Medieval Faire. (n.d.). Fair information. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.therenlist.com/fairs/royal-medieval-faire
🦅 Oxford Renaissance Festival — Thorndale / Woodstock, ON (2026 Date TBA / last held Sept 26–28 2025)
The faire where engineers build trebuchets. Once modest, now boasting full jousts, falconers, and cross-border performers from Michigan. The Oxford fields hold echoes of both history and invention — iron and imagination in equal measure.
🌐 Official Site: oxfordrenfest.com
APA Citation: Oxford Renaissance Festival. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://oxfordrenfest.com/
⚔️ Upper Canada Village Medieval Festival — Morrisburg, ON (Defunct / last active late 2010s)
Once a brief but vivid experiment in anachronism — knights among Victorian cottages. The spirit survives in smaller summer demos at the village, where steel and song sometimes still return.
🌐 Info Page: uppercanadavillage.com
APA Citation: Upper Canada Village. (n.d.). Events and programs. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.uppercanadavillage.com/
🎭 Country Renaissance Festival — Milton, ON (Defunct / mid-2010s)
A fair that died young but left descendants — its crew went on to seed the Ontario Pirate Festival and Oxford Ren Fest. It walked the border between a country fair and historical theatre.
🧚 Faery Fest’s Enchanted Ground — Guelph, ON (Defunct since 2016)
Half medieval fair, half Celtic dreamscape. Before cosplay went mainstream, Guelph’s park shimmered with wings and folklore. Its founders later drifted into writing workshops and ritual circles — fae to the last.
🪙 Treasureventure — The Adventure Festival — Rockton, ON (Defunct)
“Renaissance meets scavenger hunt.” Visitors solved riddles for gold. A lost gem — too far ahead of its time, when escape rooms were still unborn.
⚜️ Kingdom of Osgoode Medieval Festival — Osgoode Village, ON (Hiatus since 2019)
A volunteer-built kingdom with its own lore and banners. The “Dragon Quest” saga once drew CBC’s eye. Their motto endures like an inscription: Where History and Fantasy Meet.
☠️ Ontario Pirate Festival — Guelph region, ON (2026 Date TBA / last held Aug 2–4 2025)
From Milton’s dust to Guelph’s green fields, this pirate haven flies the jolly flag each August. Sea shanties, fencing, rum tastings — and the birthplace of many a ren-faire band.
🌐 Official Site: thepiratefestival.com
APA Citation: The Ontario Pirate Festival. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.thepiratefestival.com/
🛡️ Glengarry Renaissance Festival — Maxville, ON (2026 Date TBA / last held May 31–June 1 2025)
“Step into a 16th-century Scottish village.” Founded by reenactors who meant it. The tartans here are no costume — Glengarry carries Scotland in its soil.
🌐 Official Site: faires.ca/glengarry
APA Citation: Glengarry Renaissance Festival. (n.d.). Glengarry Renaissance Festival. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://faires.ca/glengarry/
⚖️ Barony of Ben Dunfirth (SCA) — Hamilton / Brantford / Burlington (Active society / no public 2026 date)
An SCA branch older than most faires — artisans of arms and ink. For them, the Middle Ages never ended; they simply migrated online and back again each weekend.
🌐 Info Page: ealdormere.ca
APA Citation: Barony of Ben Dunfirth. (n.d.). SCA branch information. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://ealdormere.ca/ben-dunfirth/
🏰 Black Creek Pioneer Village Medieval Weekend — Toronto area (2026 Date TBA / last held June 20–22 2025)
Victorian brick meets 15th-century steel. A weekend where eras overlap like palimpsest — the clang of armor beneath a 19th-century bell tower.
🌐 Official Site: blackcreek.ca
APA Citation: Black Creek Pioneer Village. (n.d.). Events. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://blackcreek.ca/
🎺 Fergus Medieval Faire — Fergus, ON (2026 Date TBA / last held July 26 2025)
A small-town celebration of Celtic pageantry — bagpipes, tartans, and bardic contests. History here hums softly through the pipes.
🌐 Official Site: fergusmedievalfaire.ca
APA Citation: Fergus Medieval Faire. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://fergusmedievalfaire.ca/
⚒️ Wentworth Medieval Faire — Ancaster / Hamilton region (Planned May 22–24 2026)
The newest heir to Ontario’s fair tradition. Forged by veterans of Oxford and Osgoode, it carries the old motto: community first, chivalry second, ale third.
🌊 British Columbia
🏹 BC Renaissance Festival — Langley, BC (2026 Status TBA / last active late 2010s)
Born in the mid-2000s with a merry chaos closer to early Burning Man than courtly pomp. It sleeps, but murmurs of revival surface every few years — a phoenix fair.
⚓ Nova Scotia
⛵ Privateer Days — Liverpool, NS (2026 Date TBA / annual July heritage festival)
Historic, not fantastical — a salute to Liverpool’s privateering past. Powder smoke and parades for those who prefer realism to romance.
🌐 Official Site: privatereerdays.ca
APA Citation: Privateer Days. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.privateerdays.ca/
🏴☠️ Pirates of Jeddore Festival — Mitchell Cove, NS (2026 Date TBA / annual September)
A family-friendly pirate gathering on the Atlantic. Wooden swords, coastal winds, and children learning to shout “Avast!” with conviction.
🇺🇸 U.S. Fairs within ~200 km of Canada
🏰 Michigan Renaissance Festival — Holly, MI (2026 Date TBA / last held Aug 16–Sept 28 2025)
The colossus of the Great Lakes. Ontario troupes cross yearly to its Elizabethan streets; rumor says one former jouster now trains screen knights for television.
🌐 Official Site: renfest.com
APA Citation: Michigan Renaissance Festival. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.renfest.com/michigan/
🎭 Sterling Renaissance Festival — Sterling, NY (2026 Date TBA / last held July–Aug 2025)
Founded 1976, a handcrafted Elizabethan village that aged into authenticity. A living theatre where even the merchants improvise in iambs.
🌐 Official Site: sterlingrenfest.com
APA Citation: Sterling Renaissance Festival. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.sterlingrenfest.com/
🍃 Vermont Renaissance Faire — Stowe, VT (2026 Date TBA / last held June 21–22 2025)
Philosophical and small — Vikings, Celts, and Romans sharing one meadow of ideas. The faire where you can debate Aristotle between sword fights.
🏺 Pre-1700 / Classical Notes
No dedicated Roman or Greek festivals yet in Canada, though SCA chapters and reenactment legions (like Ontario’s Legio XX Valeria Victrix) occasionally parade through museums.
For true marble-and-myrtle immersion, one must cross the border — New York and Pennsylvania still hold the torch of the ancient world.
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