I think this was the best Canada Day we’ve ever held. We had such an array of talented acts covering a number of different musical tastes. We had more vendors than ever, with and even wider selection of food…including two mini-donut vendors. Always a favorite on Canada Day. I loved the addition of the hoser cousins of Bob and Doug. Those guys were hilarious. It was a nice way to keep people engaged between musical sets. I think there were more people there then last year too. We don’t have an official estimate, but I think we easily had six to seven thousand. And the fireworks, incredible. What a show!
The Selkirk Fire Department volunteers decided to compress the show a bit so that there were more explosions per minute. Those guys do such a great job every year. Every year I think, there is no way they can out do themselves – and every year they prove me wrong. They tinker and tweak and add new types of firework to the show. You know they really do more with less every year. They have had the same budget for fireworks for the past 5 or 6 years now, and every year the cost of fireworks goes up, like everything else so that means they can purchase less, but you’d never know it from the show. They are truly artists! On a wow-per-dollar value scale, I would put our show up against any show around. Any show. That’s a 100% the work of our Selkirk Fire Department volunteers and our display partners Arch Angel Fireworks.The Canada Committee will definitely be looking at ways to increase our fireworks budget for next year.
Our vision for Canada Day is to make Selkirk THE place to be. Every year we add something new, something that will add excitement or bring in a new group of people. We have a “doors-open” philosophy. We want to bring people to Selkirk for the whole day; to experience all of the great things we have going on in community. Our park, our pool, our skatepark, theMarineMuseum, our shops and restaurants, our waterfront and our community spirit. We see Canada Day as our best opportunity to market Selkirk as a progressive and spirited place to live, work and play.
More important than this though, is the social capital that great events like this build in our community. Community is more than just streets and buildings, it’s the sense of connectedness and belonging. Canada Day is bar-none the best day of the year to do this. We are at once celebrating our connectedness as a country and as a city. It’s a day to be both a proud Canadian and a proud Selkirkian. I think our Canada Day celebrations help to build a sense of community pride within our citizens.
This year we added the Queen’s Jubilee 5km fun run and walk to our list of events and I think it was an absolute success. It creates a opportunity to include a new group of people in the day’s festivities and what a great way to showcase our jewel of a park. Linda Rosser and her group of volunteers did an amazing job. I know that next year will be even bigger and better.
The Manitoba Avenue street party was something that the Manitoba Avenue Merchants added last year and I think it just adds so much to the day’s festivities. It’s planned and put on by the merchants and organizations themselves and is just a wonderful way to engage the community. They do such a great job!
So much hard work goes into putting on this event. We have an army of awesome volunteers, a passionate crew of City of Selkirk employees, the RCMP our fire department, our generous sponsors and a small but mighty Canada Day committee. All of these folks are headed up by Angela Petrash our CanadaDay co-ordinator. She’s the Macgyver of community events. I swear she could host a rockin’ block party with a paper clip, bubblegum and the bark of a near by tree. She is simply amazing! Her leadership, and the work of all these people are the reason Canada Day is Selkirk so successful.
