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Nobody throws a Canada Day party like the town of Westville in Nova Scotia’s Pictou County.
The small town of approximately 3,500 people claims to have the oldest Canada Day Parade in the country. The town’s records show it began in 1907.
“We have a lot of proof,” said Tom Steele, Westville’s deputy fire chief and a longtime member of Westville’s Canada Day committee.
Steele told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Nova Scotia that no one has ever challenged Westville’s claim.
“Our Westville historian George Dooley did a lot of research on it a number of years ago,” Steele said.
Steele said the research was shared with Heritage Canada, who agreed the claim was well supported.
Westville, located 155 kilometres northeast of Halifax, was a coal mining town when it was founded in the late 1800s. The town’s first parade in 1907 gathered people as it went through the streets and culminated in Victoria Park for baseball and boxing matches followed by a bonfire.
When a cenotaph was built in the 1920s, Steele said the parade would pause there to remember the soldiers who died in the First World War.
In 1957, Steele said the Westville Community Club took over the Canada Day events, introducing a midway and the Dominion Day Queen Pageant.
The Westville Rink Commission took over the parade in 1969 and managed it for a decade. The Westville Fire Department has been in charge of the parade ever since.
Steele said the bonfires are over, but now they go big on fireworks.
“We’re fortunate to have about six firefighters that are licensed pyrotechnicians, so when we put a show on they take it pretty seriously,” he said.
“We get true value for our money because we’re not paying for a company to put them off for us.”
Steele said people will start gathering along the parade route starting at 8 a.m. to get a good spot.
The parade begins at 11 a.m., starting on Spring Garden Road and ending at Victoria Park at the Westville Fire Amphitheatre, which was built last year to celebrate the fire department’s 150th anniversary. Steele said there will be music until 6 p.m.
Around 12,000 people are expected to descend on the town to take in the festivities.
At Acadia Park, before the fireworks at 10 p.m., there will be entertainment karaoke. Steele said there will also be yard events throughout the town.
“It’s like a come home day for Westville and also for the county,” he said.
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