Saturday was a full day for the organizing committee of Alleyn-et-Cawood’s annual winter carnival, this year used as a launch of the municipality’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
Starting at 9 a.m., volunteers were hard at work at Bethany Hall serving up a big breakfast to nearly 100 community members. Festivities then expanded to include face painting and a magic show from Darell McCorriston, who entertained kids until the day’s outdoor activities began.
In the afternoon, Ski à l’école instructor Katelyn Bertrand got people of all ages and skill levels out on cross-country skis at Henry Heeney Memorial Park, just one in a few options for winter fun made possible on Saturday. Back at Bethany Hall, a euchre tournament was held for those wanting out of the cold, with live music and dancing taking the party well into the night.
Alicia Traynor was among those enjoying the morning’s activities with her young son. She grew up in Danford, and her parents still live there, but she now lives in Petawawa where she and her husband are posted with the military.
She said she has fond memories of the community’s 125th anniversary celebrations, when she was 11 years old.
“I remember the parade, and I remember the party here. It was a big deal, especially as a kid, because there’s not always a lot that goes on here. It was really eventful and we’re looking forward to the 150th.”
She said she was happy to be able to involve her son in celebrating her hometown’s birthday.
“It’s such a small tight-knit community. It’s safe, it’s inclusive, it’s been really good to say I live here. And I think it shapes kids, to bring that with you. [ . . . ] I think he’ll always have a bit of heritage and roots here.”
“We want to showcase our community spirit, and the volunteers in the community,” said Alleyn-et-Cawood mayor Sidney Squitti of her ambitions with the 150th celebrations.
“Everything in this community was built by the community for the community, like the hall we’re standing in right now. So historically Danford Lake, Alleyn and Cawood, has been a very community-oriented municipality. We just want to showcase that, and bring awareness to the founding members of our community.”
She said a committee has been tasked with piecing together the municipality’s origin story as well as historical documents and memorabilia from the last 150 years to be displayed at anniversary events over the course of the year.
“You know we have Heeney who was really instrumental in the invention of frozen foods, who’s been buried here, and his family is from here, so they donated the land for Henry Heeney Memorial Park. So we want to highlight and showcase these things, and bring awareness to what we have to offer,” Squitti said.
The municipality’s director general Isabelle Cardinal said she also sees the anniversary year as an opportunity to bring out some of the community’s more recent residents.
“We also have lots of new people that came into our community so we want to include them. Actually, at our first planning meeting we had new people that had just purchased a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “They’re here today at the breakfast and they want to be part of our community so we want to blend the old with the new.”
Cardinal said the planning for the year of celebrations only began about a month prior to Saturday’s carnival.
“We just did a call out to the community. We were pretty overwhelmed at the beginning,” Cardinal said. “The morning of, we were setting up with a few chairs and then it was like, ‘bring more chairs, bring more chairs, okay bring a table,’” Cardinal said, alluding to the swell of interest they saw at the first organizing meeting.
“We had so many people coming with so many great ideas,” Squitti said.
The big event of the year will be on the municipality’s actual anniversary on the weekend of June 13, during which there will be a live band in the park, a vintage car show, a community picnic, a parade, fireworks, beer gardens, and games set up throughout the park.
Also in store for the year of celebrations is a February spaghetti dinner; a March Easter egg hunt and pancake breakfast; a Mother’s Day tea in May; an outdoor movie in August; a grape picking event at nearby vineyard Domaine de Cawood in September, where an anniversary wine will be unveiled; a trick-or-treating event in October, a special Remembrance Day ceremony in November, and a final hoorah in the form of a New Year’s party on Dec. 31.
