Photo: Andre Chenier
Travel writers often neglect to write about their own back yards, the places they've chosen to live (and believe me, finding the ideal place to live in this world isn't easy. That's one of the themes of my last book, Kiss the Sunset Pig.) I realized I was guilty of not writing about where I live recently when I noticed a Reader's Digest contest called Canada's Most Interesting Towns. In 300 words we're supposed to write about what makes our towns cool. I live in a little English-speaking village on a big river in Quebec, 25 minutes north of Ottawa. If I had one word to sum up Wakefield, it would be eccentric, which is why I love it. But other than my writing about it locally--usually letters about all its scary environmental issues--I'd never written much about it before. These are my 300 words below that I entered in the contest (in the "most community spirit" category).
My entry is here and you can even vote for me if you like, which would be fantastic! Or maybe you'd like to write about your own city, town, or rural haven. Writing about where you live makes you think about why you're there.
Village of 1000 Bursting with Community Spirit
My entry is here and you can even vote for me if you like, which would be fantastic! Or maybe you'd like to write about your own city, town, or rural haven. Writing about where you live makes you think about why you're there.
Village of 1000 Bursting with Community Spirit
Everyone lines along on the river bank waiting for it to appear. Since it’s July 1, the sun is blinding as we gaze over the shimmering water, and making out a ramshackle pirate ship in the distance isn’t easy. But then some kid always shouts, “There it is!” and everyone squints harder. The kid is right. The Wakefield Raft, constructed new and more creatively every year by the village teens, is sailing down the Gatineau River toward us, just as the Canada Day Parade behind us is starting. Already we hear drumming and singing from the floats, and look, there’s the Village Poet leading the parade on his bike, adorned as usual with a tea cozy on his head. The Wakefield Granny float is next, filled with a dozen laughing grandmothers who started an international movement to support grandmothers in Africa. For years, the Wakefield Grannies have been enlightening Wakefielders on the plight of elderly African women who’ve lost their children to AIDS and now raising their grandchildren. The annual Granny Concert on Wakefield’s covered bridge, featuring jumping dancers from Burundi and 60-voice choirs, is just one of many Wakefield fundraisers to help African grandmothers buy food for their families. These Wakefield Grannies are feisty. They once posed in the Wakefield Nude Calendar, another fundraiser where notable townsfolk and the village’s most colourful eccentrics strip down to support the Wakefield Emergency Fund. And in the parade, here comes the SOS float where they’re shouting, “Save our Spring!” They’ve been trying to protect the town’s source of spring water and their marches, mock funerals, and benefits are wildly popular, almost as much as the Save Our River rallies to stop a septic sludge plant from polluting the river. Wakefielders won that fight. The Gatineau River is saved. And, right now, those teenagers from their pirate ship are plunging from the top deck straight into its chilly blue depths. We all cheer for the kids, for the river, for Wakefield.
Dancers from Burundi on Wakefield Covered Bridge (JP Simbandumwe)
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