Thoughts & Things

Canada Day Celebrations

As I am sure many of you know, and as I am sure I made apparent in my previous two blog entries, Canada Day is July 1, and this year we celebrated 150 years since confederation. Because it was a full 150, there were some pretty extravagant parties and plans set up to celebrate, so I thought I would share some of what went on locally.

Fireworks were set up across the city. The fireworks in the downtown core were set off over the river, lasted for twenty minutes, and featured twice as many fireworks as it normally would. Every area of fireworks seemed to have its own party tied to it. There was a celebration near my house that had a piano painted up with Canadian symbols that was available for the community to play. Unfortunately the piano seized up much earlier than was anticipated, so they couldn't play it for Canada Day.

The downtown area of my city featured the largest celebrations, which would be what I attended. The party lasted all weekend, with festivities open for four days in a row.. Live music went on at two to three stages throughout the entire weekend, including some moderately well known acts, as well as local bands. There was a local ice cream parlour giving away free cones of ice cream. The line was obscene, but it was well worth the wait (delicious and free is always good in my books).

There was every kind of food and drink, including a beer tent filled with local breweries. I don't really like beer, but I tried a little anyway, and I didn't completely hate it. I definitely had my eye on some of the food, since the entire festival had that tasty food cooking smell to it, but I didn't have much money to spare.

Canada Day also featured some protests due to the number of people that feel Canada Day celebrates 150 years of colonialism. I spoke about some of the issues Canada has in my previous blog entry, "5 Notes on the Darker Side of Canada" , which rank among the things the protesters considered worth protesting.

Overall, it was an interesting day that featured many memorable festivities. It was certainly worth attending for me and my family.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Sixty-Two. Seven days of leave taken total.)