South Frontenac’s final Canada 150 project is for future residents

Craig Bakay | Jan 10, 2018

Fifty years from now, on Canada Day, South Frontenac residents will gather at Centennial Park in Harrowsmith to dig up a piece of their past.

Actually, what they’ll be digging up is a squat metal cylinder. And in that cylinder will be messages and memorabilia from 50 years in the past, ie 2017.

Yes, the cylinder is a time capsule, the brainchild of Amanda Pantrey, a summer student the South Frontenac Rec department.

“This is just my little idea to celebrate Canada 150,” she said. “It will be buried in Centennial Park, which was built for Canada’s 100th birthday.

“The capsule is being buried for Canada’s 150th birthday and it will be opened on Canada’s 200th birthday.”

The capsule itself was constructed by D. M. Welding in Inverary. The official deadline for submissions is Dec. 21 but it won’t be sealed until after something from the New Year’s Eve celebration is added.

And while they haven’t quite finished inventorying everything that’s going into the capsule, Pantrey said the idea is to show “what life was like in South Frontenac in 2017 and how much pride we have in our community.”

For example, she said, the rec committees have each submitted something, as did the 150 Road Rally and other events such as the Battersea Pumpkin Festival (of which Pantrey is the chair). Mayor Ron Vandewal is writing a letter to his counterpart in 2067 and each of the schools combined to send a special greeting.

“Students at each of the six elementary schools formed a letter in the word ‘Canada,’” she said. “Then we got an aerial drone to photograph it.

“Then, the high school spelled out ‘150.’

“It’s really cool.”

Even South Frontenac Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth is getting in on the act.

“What we have here is a map of the various districts showing the first curbside garbage pickup routes,” Segsworth said. “And we have plastic bag tags, which were the first ones we used.

“Each district had a different coloured plastic tag and we had to change the colours every year because the tags were only good for the year they were issued.

“Who knows what they’ll be doing with their waste in 2067?”

Pantrey said her job was relatively easy because the community rallied around the project.

“People are in good spirits about it,” she said.

She said she really hasn’t had time to think about when the capsule is opened or even what she might personally put in it.

“I think I may put in my turkey (hunting) tag from this year,” she said. “The one I didn’t fill.”