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Celebrate Canada Day throughout the Shuswap

Fun, food and fireworks featured in July 1 events
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Canada’s 151st birthday will be celebrated across the Shuswap, with plenty of day and evening activities, food, fun, and fireworks, including Canoe Beach in Salmon Arm. (File photo)

Folks in the Shuswap will have plenty of opportunities to celebrate Canada’s 151st birthday.

The celebrations begin early in Salmon Arm with a $2 pancake breakfast at the Fifth Avenue Seniors Activity Centre. Proceeds go to local Girl Guides and Pathfinders.

Then head over to the always-popular, free Children’s Festival that runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Salmon Arm Fairgrounds.

The gates open at 9:45 and every child receives one free game ticket plus another bonus game ticket if they are wearing red. Please note – leave your dogs, whatever size, at home.

Festival events include 50 cent carnival games and loads of free activities, including bouncy houses, dance exhibition and wagon rides.

Thanks to the support of local businesses, there are slides, an obstacle course, a sand zone, a craft station, water play, a 4H petting zoo, car painting, science exploration, bubble fun and more.

Picnic tables will be set up in the shade and food available will include hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, water, pop, freezies, chips and healthy choices.

For more information, go to http://sachildrensfest.com/food.html.

At 6 p.m., head over to Canoe Beach. Take a picnic or get a meal from Top Jimmy’s Beach Café that will have the grill ready to make hamburgers. DJ Patrick Ryley will provide the tunes and suggests that kids take glow sticks and lanterns to light up the beach.

And, for the second year, Salmon Arm will celebrate with a fireworks display.

Sicamous

Sicamous has a long history of celebrating Canada’s birthday as well.

There, the day begins on Main Street with the third annual hockey tournament and a Kids Fun Zone that features a bouncy castle, foam pit, face-painting, waterslide, obstacle course, horizontal bungee run and a kids craft zone at the Red Barn.

At 3:30 p.m., the party moves to Sicamous Beach Park where vendors and a beverage garden will be set up and live entertainment will be provided by the uproarious Five Alarm Funk along with Donnie McDougall, The Steadies and Shoeswap.

The annual fireworks display begins at dusk.

South Shuswap

Heading west, South Shuswap also boasts a daylong celebration starting at 10 a.m. with a parade that has a huge lineup of floats and entries. The parade begins with a large collection of antique cars, and floats are both local and from afar carrying dignitaries, characters and entertainment.

Keep in mind that from 9:45 a.m. until the parade ends at approximately 11 a.m., Balmoral Road from Mountview south to Blind Bay Road and then along Blind Bay Road to the Canada Day field will be closed to traffic.

Centennial Field boasts the ‘Biggest Little Celebration’ around to commemorate Canada Day, beginning with the Lion’s Club pancake breakfast beginning at 8 a.m. Kids will be kept busy with face-painting, a giant sand box, chalk walk, crafts, story tent, firefighter challenge, train rides, kids’ carnival-style 50-cent games with great prizes, bouncies and more.

Everyone will groove to the all-Canadian lineup of entertainment. Food vendors will help keep bellies full with an assortment that includes mini doughnuts, to shaved ice and full meals.

Also on-site are a number of vendors with a large selection of local artisans and craftsmanship as well as licensed product lines.

A fireworks display set to music lights up the skies beginning around 10:30 p.m.

Chase

Chase is another Shuswap community that hosts a wide variety of events to celebrate our country’s birthday and the annual parade begins at noon at the Art Holding Memorial Arena and travels to the PharmaChoice Food & Drug parking lot.

Activities kick off in Memorial Park at 1 p.m. with a park market consisting of local vendors, food trucks and artisans. Boat rides will be available between 1 and 4 depending on the weather. The boat launch will otherwise be closed for the entire day.

An adult-only beer garden will be open from noon to 10:30 p.m. but the kids will have lots of activities to choose from 1 to 4 p.m. – a colouring contest, fish pond, balloon darts, face-painting, and more.

Speeches and the singing of O Canada take place at 2 and are followed by entertainment at 3 p.m. provided by Seal Skull Hammer, Sabrina Weeks and Mike Hilliard, Brett Wildeman, Tanner Dawson - DAWsound & Daylen James.

The Chase Fire Department will set off fireworks at 1o.

Eargazm will be closing the Canada Day celebrations at Memorial Park this year in Chase with an epic laser/light show under the fireworks. Eargazm is an electronic Dj duo calibration of “Djs in love.” Local Dj’s SpunLogic and Brownie Girl are known for their euphoric sounds and samples of uplifting deep house, bassline rhythms and energetic mixing.

North Shuswap

For those in the North Shuswap, the Canada Day Summer Festival takes place at Scotch Creek Provincial Park from noon to 4 p.m.

Highlights include food and market vendors, logger demonstrations, firefighter demonstrations, live music, and activities for kids.