Vaughan to St. Jacobs and Waterloo: the market, the country and the campuses

St. Jacobs, and the market beside it

The St. Jacobs Farmers' Market north of Waterloo is the largest year-round farmers' market in Canada — an indoor market building, an outdoor market of hundreds of stalls in summer, a flea market and the Mennonite farm wagons of Woolwich Township's Old Order families selling produce, baking, sausage and maple syrup — on Thursdays and Saturdays all year and Tuesdays in summer, on a site off Farmers' Market Road with lots that fill by nine on a Saturday. Two kilometres north, the village of St. Jacobs is a main street of shops in old mills and warehouses — quilts, crafts, the Mennonite Story's interpretive centre, the Village Silos — and around both the county roads of the township carry the black buggies and the farm gates that are the region's picture. Waterloo, the city to the south, has the two universities that a good share of Vaughan's students attend, and their move-ins are the Sprinter bookings of every September.

The market morning

The market is a morning, and an early one: a family from Thornhill in a Luxury SUV leaves at 7:30 on a Saturday, is at the market by 8:45 with the chauffeur dropping at the market building's door and taking the vehicle to the far lot the family never walks from, does the indoor building for the sausage, the cheese and the apple fritters, the outdoor stalls for the produce and the Mennonite wagons' baking, the flea market for the children, and is back at the door at eleven with four bags and a flat of strawberries that go in the cargo area. The village for lunch and the shops; the country roads in the afternoon; home by four. Eight hours of hourly hire, one number in the booking engine, and a Saturday market without the lot. The market's site has the days and the seasons; the summer's outdoor market is the full version and the winter's indoor building is the same market smaller.

The village and the Mennonite Story

St. Jacobs village is a walk: King Street's shops in the old mills — the quilt shops, the Village Silos' artisans, the broom maker, the maple syrup museum, the bakery — with The Mennonite Story at the visitor centre explaining the Old Order community whose farms surround the village and whose buggies share the roads; a family with children over eight spends an hour there and understands the wagons at the market afterwards. The Waterloo Central Railway runs heritage trains between the village, the market and Elmira on summer weekends — the ride that turns the market morning into a family day. The chauffeur drops on King Street and the village's lots are the vehicle's, not the family's.

The country roads

Woolwich Township's county roads north and west of the village — toward Elmira, Hawkesville, Wallenstein and Linwood — are Old Order Mennonite country: the farm gates selling eggs, maple syrup and quilts on the honour system, the buggies at a walking pace on the shoulder, the meeting houses, the schoolhouses, the Conestogo River's covered bridge at West Montrose. A chauffeured hour on them after lunch is the part of the day a family in its own car does not do, because the driver is the one who cannot look; the chauffeur drives at the buggies' pace, which the township's signs ask for, and stops at the gates the family points at.

The Waterloo and Laurier move-ins

The University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University sit side by side on University Avenue, and their September move-ins are among the biggest Sprinter bookings on this site: a family from Woodbridge with a first-year student, the residence bins, the fridge, the bicycle and the winter coat, one vehicle, the residence's unloading window on University Avenue's one-way system, the parents home the same afternoon or after a St. Jacobs Sunday. Conestoga College's Waterloo and Kitchener campuses are the same booking. Move-out in April reverses it; the corporate account structure keeps eight runs on one invoice, and the Kingston post describes the shape.

Waterloo itself

Waterloo's uptown — King Street's restaurants, the public square, the Perimeter Institute's public lectures, the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo Park — is the parents' evening on a move-in weekend and the student's city afterwards; the Waterloo Region's technology quarter around the universities is where a Vaughan company's client visit lands, and the black car page covers the point-to-point version.

The route

The 407 west to the 401, the 401 west to Highway 8 at Kitchener, Highway 8 and the Conestoga Parkway (Highway 85) north through Waterloo to the St. Jacobs exits — an hour and a quarter from Kleinburg; or Highway 7 west through Guelph and the county roads, the no-toll road that is fifteen minutes longer and prettier. The routing estimate's hour and forty is the no-toll version; the fare includes the 407.

Which vehicle

An SUV for the market morning with boosters at $25 each and a cargo area for the haul; a Sprinter for two families at the market, for the move-in, and for a group's market-and-Elora day; a Premium Sedan for a couple's Saturday. The Sprinter's bay takes a flat of strawberries, a case of syrup and two quilts without anyone holding them.

What the chauffeur replaces

The market's Saturday lots; the walk from the far lot with the bags; the residence load's second car; and the country drive that the driver never sees. The fare is one number in the booking engine, and for a family of four it is a comfort purchase the site prices plainly; for two families in a Sprinter it undercuts two cars and two lots, and for the move-in it undercuts a car and a rented van.

Seasons

Saturdays all year and Thursdays too; Tuesdays in summer; the outdoor market from May to October; the maple syrup season in March at the farm gates and the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival's Saturday in early April, the township's biggest day; September and April for the campuses. The Christmas market in December is the village's lights and the market building's gifts.

Pairing it

St. Jacobs pairs with Elora for a gorge afternoon after the market, with Kitchener's Oktoberfest for the October weekend, and with Cambridge and Guelph for a Waterloo Region day that does all three towns.

A market Saturday, in order, for a family of four

The Luxury SUV from Concord at 7:30 with two boosters and an empty cargo area; the 407 and 401, the Conestoga Parkway, the market's Farmers' Market Road at 8:45 with the chauffeur dropping at the market building's north door; the indoor building first — the sausage counter, the cheese, the apple fritters that the children eat in the line — then the outdoor stalls' produce and the Mennonite wagons' baking and syrup, the flea market's tables for the children until 10:45; the north door at eleven with six bags and a flat of berries into the cargo area. The Waterloo Central Railway's 11:30 train from the market's platform to the village — twenty minutes of heritage rail that the children rate above the market; the village's King Street for lunch and the Mennonite Story until two; the country roads west through Hawkesville and Wallenstein with two farm-gate stops for eggs and a quilt until three fifteen, the buggies passed at a walk; the train's return or the SUV's drive back to the market lot; home by five. Nine and a half hours of hourly hire, one number in the booking engine, and a Saturday market whose lots the family never saw.

The move-in, worked through

A first-year student from Woodbridge to a University of Waterloo residence: the family of four, the bins, the fridge, the bicycle, the desk chair that would not fit in the car. The Sprinter at 7 a.m., the load in the bay, the 407 and 401, the residence's unloading zone on University Avenue at 8:45 in the assigned window with the university's move-in volunteers at the kerb; the load up in twenty minutes, the Sprinter to a lot, the family's campus walk and the orientation session, lunch in uptown Waterloo, and the parents home by two — or the St. Jacobs market on the Sunday morning and home after it, the weekend version. Laurier's residences are a block away and the same day; the corporate account keeps the four years' runs on one invoice.

Elmira and the maple syrup festival

Elmira, ten minutes north of St. Jacobs, is the township's town — a main street, the Old Order community's centre, the covered-bridge country around it — and on the first Saturday of April it holds the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, the largest single-day maple festival in the world by the town's own count: pancakes, the sugar bush tours by wagon, the toy show, the antique show, and streets full of people from a town of eleven thousand. A Vaughan family books it as a Sprinter morning: the drop on the closed main street's edge at nine, the pancakes, the bush tour, the syrup in the bay, home by two. The festival's site has the date; the chauffeur knows where a vehicle can wait on a day when the town's roads are closed.

Uptown Waterloo and the parents' evening

Waterloo's uptown King Street — the public square, the restaurants, the Princess Cinema, the Perimeter Institute's building on the park — is the parents' evening on a move-in weekend and the couple's dinner on a market Saturday; the Waterloo Region Museum on the Kitchener side and the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery on Caroline Street are the afternoon. The region's tourism site has the calendar; the chauffeur drops on King Street and the uptown garages are the vehicle's.

Pickup notes

The 407 and 401 from every Vaughan community, or Highway 7 west from Woodbridge and Kleinburg through Guelph — the country road; a Thornhill pickup joins the 407 at Bathurst. Give us the market day, the train if wanted, the residence window and the loads for a move-in, the seats and the farm-gate stops, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Booking it

Book an hourly morning or day from your Vaughan address for the market with the day of the week, a Sprinter for the move-in with the residence window, or a return pair for a Waterloo weekend; tell us the seats, the haul and the train if wanted, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the St. Jacobs market run