Canada Day in Revelstoke

Oh, Canada!

It was Saturday, July 1, 2017 - Canada Day - and we were happily ensconced in our campground in Revelstoke.  We were surrounded by lots of other happy holiday campers, so it was not exactly a feeling of solitude:

However, we could hear the happy sounds of children, puppies and celebrating adults all weekend, so it was very cheery.

We decided to spend the whole day in downtown Revelstoke.  We started with a $3.00 (Canadian) pancake breakast offered by Chubby Funster's, a local restaurant on the main street.  The breakfast wasn't served until 9:00 am, so we had a little time to kill, and, as luck would have it, the Saturday Farmer's Market had set up by 8:00 am.  We decided to browse the market and try out our Canada Day regalia while waiting for breakfast:

David particularly relished his Canada Day pancakes:

After the pancake breakfast, the next big event would be the parade at 11:00 am, so we had some more time to kill, and handled that by taking a stroll over to Centennial Park, along the beautiful Columbia River:

A look upstream showed some of the country that we would be paddling through in our next couple of outings:

Across the river, the clouds and mountains made an abstract painting pleasing to the eye:

While the waterfront in Centennial Park had not been highly developed, it offered a long walk along the river with sweeping views of abundant splendor.

Here was a view back toward downtown, where we had to head next for the big parade:

To us, the highlight of the parade was Thomas the Tank Train, who made an unannounced appearance.  We think our grandson William would be very jealous that we got to see Thomas:

Once the parade had passed through downtown, we got to march at the rear, following it up to Queen Elizabeth Park, where the post-parade celebration would be held all afternoon.

The highlight of the celebration was a large mural, made of tiles that were each painted by different school kids in Revelstoke.  Each tile was a picture or design in itself, but combined and mounted on a large board, it made a larger picture with a Revelstoke motif:

The community also baked a Canada Day cake, and everyone gathered around to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday!