Last Monday we headed downtown and attended the annual Sechelt Canada Day Parade. Canada Day has traditionally been Sechelt’s big event. (Pender Harbour has May Day and Gibsons used to have Sea Cavalcade.) In recent years, the celebrations have morphed and adapted to varying circumstances. We had neighbourhood parades in 2020. We had an Orange Shirt Walk in 2021 and then a Sechelt Nation-led parade in 2022. Last year and this year there has been a mix of orange and red shirts in the crowd and in the parade and a lot of people just wearing whatever they felt like wearing that day. Which seemed like a nice representation of the best of Canada – a nation that embraces a wide variety of human beings, cultures, and languages.
It was nice to wave at kids and adults we knew in the parade and to chat with a few friends we ran in to. Pearl and Rose collected candy and pointed out the parts they liked, remembering parades from years past.
This year we opted not to go to the fair at the local park afterward but instead headed out for a family hike in Tetrahedron Provincial Park.
There are extensive trails in this park with a few different cabins designed for overnight hikers. We’ve hiked as a family before to the closest cabin at Batchelor and Peter’s visited various ones before. We decided to aim a little further this time and hiked to Edwards Cabin. It was a decent hike all told but the girls did quite well and the weather was great.
It’s amazing to see the different trees and undergrowth that exist just a few hours away from our house. We spotted two grouse (or maybe one grouse, twice) and lots of yellow cedar. We had snacks at the cabin before heading home. We’re extremely fortunate to live in a place where we have access to such a beautiful location.
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I remember you talking about the orange shirt parade last year! Glad to hear you had a good time, and that the girls are up for hiking more now that they are bigger.
In recent years there were some anti-vax etc groups who used the Canadian flag a lot and there was a lot of racism tied up in it and it feels like now when you see someone flying our flag you have to wonder if they’re a conspiracy-following jerk. I don’t want to be lumped in with that but I also don’t want our national symbol to be claimed like that. So getting to celebrate at Canada Day feels good even while we want to honour the complicated history of our nation.
Maybe in the U.S. we’re lucky that the confederate flag exists? It makes it easier to see who I don’t want to associate with. 😬
Interesting! That does seem handy to have such an obvious (if I may) red flag. I can’t think of a Canadian equivalent…There’s the Quebec flag but that’s just the separatists without the overt racism and it’s very rare to see that here on the West Coast. A friend of mine says she only feels comfortable with the Canadian flag if people are also flying a Ukrainian flag.
I think your friend is on to something!