Cherry Carnival, Bear River

I am not going to talk about moving. The subject is so darned tedious at this point that I don’t even want to go there. Suffice it to say that today I took a break from oiling kitchen cabinets to check out the annual Cherry Carnival in Bear River.

The view of Bear River from our temporary housing.

The Carnival is the most well attended annual event in the village and attracts hundreds of people, most of them former Bear Riverites. It’s a real homecoming time.

The day starts off with a parade and most of the floats are, charmingly, home-made.

Next to the parade, the single most popular event is the greased pole event. This goes on for hours as all ages try their turn at walking it to capture the flag. Most fall into the river to sighs and moans and laughter of the crowd. Two hours after I took this photo, we heard the crowd roar for the winner…by the sounds of it, it was quite wonderful.

I dropped into the Bare Canvas Gallery for a book and poetry reading. Newfoundland writers Lisa Moore and James Langer read and it was such a treat to here them talk about their work while surrounded by the art in the Gallery.

Lisa Moore's book "February" is published by Anansi Press.

The writers hung around for signings, conversation and delicious treats that were prepared by the Bear River Cafe.

James Langer's book Gun Dogs is new to my collection.

James told humourous tales about how teachers influenced his love of poetry and his interest in writing. It reminded me that random  events of people in our lives have huge impact on our life’s path.

Life events are truly a gamble. On that note, I headed over to the roulette wheel…my very first time ever! The Carnival is meant to raise funds for our volunteer Fire Department. Fireman Jon enticed me into the game with his reminder that my real gamble was moving to Bear River. Since that has worked out beyond our expectations, I figured I could slap down my 4 quarters and turn them into gold.

The game is rigged, I’m sure. I was up to 3 dollars, got confident and bet wildly. In the end, the fire department won.

Tonight the sky will be on fire ….. with fireworks. Until then, I’m back at our house watching Don and Larry put the washing machine in place and move our bed upstairs.

Looks like my gambling days are over.

Cherry Carnival – Volunteer Extravaganza

note: The 2009 Cherry Carnival will take place on Saturday July 25th and Sunday July 26th.

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The big event of the year in Bear River is the July Cherry Carnival. It serves as a fundraiser for the Volunteer Fire Department, but it’s much more than that.

It’s an opportunity for people to participate together. There are karaoke competitions, woodsman competitions, canoe races, pie-eating contests, and a 4 course dinner at the firehall. There was so much going on and such crowds of people like I have NEVER seen before in Bear RIver, that I had to walk up to the studio and take a break in between events…….it was as if 100’s of people woke up and said to themselves; “why let’s take a drive out to Bear River today and, while we’re at it, let’s take the kids and our best friends too.”

 

In fact, there were so many activities taking place, that I can’t even list or show them all. Instead, I’ll show you some of my favorites.

The day starts off with a parade led by the Volunteer Fire Department.  Yes, I said Volunteer. I think it’s pretty amazing that people are willing to risk their health and lives to help fellow community members and to do it for free! Of course this is the reality of rural Canada where community funds are spread far too thin. It is still shocking for me that our ‘first-world-country”—no, make that “world-class” does not have universal fire services or universal potable water in every community.

 So, the Fire Service here sponsors this annual event to raise funds, awareness and to hopefully sign up some more volunteers. There must be a certain number of volunteers in order to receive funding for basic equipment and training from the Province. Should this number drop below a certain amount, the station must close. So really, you could say this is a high-stakes event!

 

This first video clip begins with the Fire Fighters’ megaphone message. Note that when the van drives past, the speaker is driving AND reading his script. Talk about multi-tasking!

Next comes the Legion, veterans, and cadets. The Maritime provinces have a long tradition of offering up their youth to Canadian armed and peacekeeping forces. This seems to me to fly in the face of the laid-backness of Nova Scotia, but economics and a very long coastline have been, I’m guessing, decisive factors in this. At any rate, there is a lot of respect and pride shown here for the men and women who offer themselves up. 

my police escort and me

What I found very charming about the parade was the home-made floats by some of the local family businesses. Note in this clip the float with the crashed plane in the trees. Peck-Aero, in true “can-do” Bear River fashion, buys broken float planes, fixes them and resells them. The signs on the back of the float say: “Maybe we should have asked Gramp before we took the plane” and “Never let the kids fly!”

This year, for the first time, there was a show of recent and antique canoes. I’d love to see these on display at a major Canadian museum. They were beautiful examples of fine craft. The theme was “The Story Behind the Canoe” and I think you would have been touched by the writings and the woodworking. 

8 Foot Pack Canoe
(on loan from Duff Wilson)
These canoes were built for or by fur trappers and were used to cross meadows and streams to check trap lines.
This canoe is believed to be built by Lewis Jeremy, a well known Mi”Kmaq from Lequille.
Notice the hand made ribs. 

I simply love the colour! It may not be the original, but it evokes some of the colourful buildings you see in Atlantic Canada.

This canoe, made by R. Muise is made from woven split ash. What an unusual, fine-looking piece of art! It was, I think, my favorite one.

I was most touched by this home-made sign on a hand-made canoe:

Richard McKinnon Milton, Queens County
This style canoe is of the Dene People that traveled the Great Slave Lake area called a Dog Rib Canoe. When this canoe was built in 2002 I got my brother and his 2 children and my 2 children to help build it. This is 1 of 3 birch bark canoes I built. I would like to thank my father Donald McKinnon to show me how to get the bark.
Murray Moores lent me a really good book on birch bark canoe building.
John Francis Sr. showed me things of the old days that inspired me to build a birch bark canoe. These 3 men and Vernon Fraser with their stories of the old ways of living made it easy. Thank you!

 

You can look at the rest of my canoe photos on Flickr.

Over in the Fire Hall parking lot, there was a ‘Woodsman Competition”. This is a throwback to the days when lumber and shipbuilding were king in Bear River. I did see a woman in the axe-throwing contest and I wished that I had the ability and courage to try it out! Maybe next year.

Well, if canoes and parades aren’t your thing, you could have been tattoed by Lynn…

or discussed NDP politics with George…

or chatted with neighbours…

Marge and Charles Couper, Larry and Lucky.

The carnival has a long tradition and has even outlasted the long-ago Cherry Tree blight that wiped out most of the trees in Bear River. That’s why the fire department has to sell Ontario cherries!

There was a lot more that happened – a cherry-spitting contest, a greased pole walk, and spectacular fireworks. You’ll have to imagine those. 

All in all it was a hectic, wild day and so strange to see so many people descend on this little town. I hope the fire department did well. They sure put on a great show!