Hundreds showed up at Gyro Park in downtown Penticton Saturday for a Canada Day celebration that kicked off mid-morning and continued pretty much the entire day.
Multiple performers took their turns at the Gyro band shell between the 10 am start time and the dinner hour finish, including artists like Ari Neufeld, the Penticton Concert Band and party rockers Jack and Jill.
The noon opening ceremony was the high point, when assorted dignitaries and political types took the stage and Syilx Okanagan Nation representative and vocalist/drummer Serenity Baptiste energetically delivered The Okanagan Song (which she would repeat approximately an hour later at the Penticton Scottish Festival) and the PCB played a bang-up version of O Canada.
Folks like Penticton Indian Band chief Greg Gabriel, Penticton mayor Julius Bloomfield, South Okanagan--West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings and Penticton MLA Dan Ashton each offered words to the crowd.
Cannings arguably got the loudest round of applause when he proclaimed that, "Penticton, I would say, is the best place to live in Canada, and Canada is the best place to live in the world.”
Then Brett Turner, executive director of organizing body Downtown Penticton Business Improvement Association made the crowd even happier when he announced freebie cupcakes for everyone in attendance.
Aside from the busy stage, Gyro was packed with family-oriented activities like a bouncy castle, an obstacle course, a colouring station, and the always popular goat petting zoo.
Amongst the impressively large crowd (folks checking in from the adjacent Famers Market only added to the crush) were Christine and Russell Stasiuk, 38-year residents of Penticton.
The Stasiuks moved here from "Prince Rupert via Vancouver" 38 years ago for a teaching job, and never left.
"We asked our kids where they wanted to go, and they said, 'Some place sunny,'" said Russell. "We actually came here because they used to have Ogopogo Land in Peachland way back when.
"And the kids said they wanted to live in Ogopogo Land."
The Stasiuks were dressed in their finest reds and whites for the day, and as it turns out they have very different paths to their rampant Canadian-ism.
"We just love this country," said Christine. "And I have very invested roots. I'm parts French, English and Metis."
Russell calls himself, "First-generation Canadian with a Ukrainian background."
"My parents came from the Ukraine through England," he added. "They came to Canada and worked their guts out to make a life. They loved it here.
"And I do too."
