Young and old, families and couples gathered in Centennial Park on the evening of July 1 to celebrate Canada Day and the park’s 50th anniversary.
Dignitaries, among them MLA Donna Barnett, MP Cathy McLeod, CRD Chair Al Richmond and Mayor Mitch Campsall, most of them attending their second or third event of the day, opened up the festivities with speeches celebrating the changes the area has seen since Canada’s centennial in 1967.
Barnett arrived in the South Cariboo in 1967 and says that park has played home to many of her memories: outdoor dances, snowmobiling, weddings, funerals, relay races.
“It is the most beautiful untold story of a piece of land that there is in British Columbia.”
Barnett credits volunteers for making British Columbia and Canada the place it is today.
“If it wasn’t for the volunteers, as I always say, we probably would still have bush in the park. It is the volunteers of this community, in the South Cariboo, of the whole country that built this country called British Columbia and Canada. No matter where you go, the volunteers are there giving up their time, their money and their energy.”
The Lions’ Club started working on the park in 1965 in order to have the Centennial Park up and running for Canada’s 100th anniversary.
In honour of the occasion Lions Club member Ron Graves spoke about the development of the park.
“The park was the brainchild of the Lions’ Club but in the end, it was a community creation, and as you can see it still is.”
After the speeches, Front Porch, a local bluegrass band, took to the stage while attendees chowed down on Canada Day cupcakes, others took advantage of the BBQ and even more played throughout the park.
