Canada Day Fireworks

Wilma Kenny | Jul 05, 2023

Canada Day fireworks in South Frontenac was a cliff-hanger. Environment Canada began issuing tornado, thunderstorm and hail warnings in the early afternoon. Dark clouds tumbled across a rumbling sky, it began to spit rain, and by mid-afternoon all the booths at the Point Park had been closed down and sent home. Across the Township in Bedford, Portland and Storrington, ten buses stood ready to bring people to Sydenham for the first in a three-year experiment of fireworks amalgamation in one each of the three southern and most populous districts.

Not until 8pm, half an hour before the busses’ scheduled departure, did the company setting off the fireworks give a go-ahead.

So: busses arrived in Sydenham at mid-dusk, the football field and its (wet) bleachers filled with people, many of whom had wisely brought their own chairs. Children, both young and old, had been amply supplied on the busses with all colours of little glow-sticks, the east end of the lake filled with boat lights and the satisfyingly impressive fireworks began right on schedule.

Somehow, people seemed to find their way back to their designated orange bus home: there have been no reports of a busload of Storrington residents turning up that night in Bedford, or vice versa.

Great credit goes to Program and Events Coordinator Amanda Pantrey, who handled all the day’s complicated communications so successfully!