The Municipality of Mansfield and Pontefract marked the end of a series of festivities celebrating its 175th anniversary with a weekend full of events at Plage du Pont Blanc.
The events were organized by Louis Harvey, the development agent responsible for creating vitalization projects for the municipality.
Thursday night kicked off the weekend of festivities with a music concert from Ottawa band Rats d’Swompe, a group of five Franco-Ontarien members who took the stage all wearing red flannel shirts, and playing a variety of rock, pop and punk music.
“It was wonderful with Rats d’Swompe,” Harvey said in a french interview with THE EQUITY.
“It was a group of professional musicians with all their lighting, their sound, and sound technicians, so we had something extremely professional that was playing.
They got the crowd going. We were tapping along, we sang. They were very good.”
Friday evening brought a more relaxed atmosphere with an outdoor movie at Aventure Hélianthe’s axe throwing area.
Fire pits around the venue were alit, adding an air of calm to the evening as . . .
people enjoyed an outdoor screening of Les Rapides Du Diables, a documentary about the history of the lumbermen of the St. Lawrence River.
“[The film] talks about the entire epic of the raftsmen, the bark-stripped wooden boats, the forestry operations, and all these notions of history, legends, and tales,” Harvey explained.
The festivities came to a close on Saturday afternoon with the arrival of the French circus group Familia from Quebec City theatre company Aubergine de la Macédoine.
The group kept children and adults alike entertained for a half-hour show, performing a variety of circus acts, magic tricks, singing and dancing, as well as acrobatics, without talking and instead using expressions and body language to interact with the crowd.
The afternoon also featured ice cream and bouncy castles to entertain the children after the show.
“I think there really wasn’t any cultural programming established in Mansfield,” Harvey said. “Now, there has been some. Some things worked, some things didn’t work as well, but that’s normal.”
Harvey has been working closely with Mansfield, managing notable projects in the region such as the outdoor stop on Highway 148, opened earlier this year, as well as the new light installation on the landmark Félix-Gabriel-Marchand covered bridge.
Mansfield mayor Sandra Armstrong said she’s proud to be able to celebrate the 175th anniversary as mayor of the municipality.
“If I’m here now in 2024 and continuing the work that [the previous mayors] have done, trying to make Mansfield better again, it’s very important. It’s a very proud moment for me,” she said.
“Trying to accomplish more as we go forward is very important.”
She pointed out that tourism has been an important part of the municipality’s growth, and noted a variety of tourism businesses have set up shop in the municipality in recent years.
“It brings a flow for the businesses, restaurants, gas stations, camping,” Armstrong said. “Mansfield is getting bigger and more people are coming in, and we’re right on 148 so it’s really good that we have somebody like Louis to help us develop things.”
Armstrong hopes that in the coming years the municipality will see more development in the town, emphasizing what she sees as a need to bring more industries to the area.
Although the month of events planned for the celebration have come to a close, the municipality has not discounted planning another event before the end of the year in honour of its 175th anniversary.
