Canada Day in Saint Andrews regularly draws crowds of 10,000 people, so how have the town and businesses prepared for this year’s celebrations?

If someone didn’t know Canada Day was coming up Sean Melady’s nearly two story Canada flag would be a reminder.

“I just got it up… it’s been a traffic jam out front,” said Melady. 

The flag draped across the front of Melady’s Parr Street house, and takes up the better part of his home and screams Canadian pride. 

In anticipation of Canada Day, Saint Andrews, its residents and businesses have been preparing for the festivities well in advance of this year’s celebrations.  

“Usually the planning process starts usually about a year ahead,” said Saint Andrews Manager of Recreation Merven Hanselpacker, who is in charge of the event planning.

He said the events all around town make this day complicated to plan. Having been in the position for nearly three years he said it is getting easier to pull all the strings together to pull off a successful event.

Hanselpacker said this year’s festivities will honour the time old traditions like the Fireman’s Pancake Breakfast but also incorporate more kids games, a dunk tank, and an assortment of different carnival games. 

“We have DJ Ian Curran, and then DJ Carlos… They do the end of the night party right before the fireworks,” he said.

“And another thing that we’re doing this year that we haven’t done in previous years is a game show.”

The Ultimate Showdown game show will be hosted by Ian Curran at 6 p.m. in Market Square. 

“Most local businesses are open during Canada Day—it’s the busiest day of the year,” said Hanselpacker. 

Dominique Berlenger, the owner of The Kennedy House, has been adding staff the past couple of months, both to the front of the house and kitchen.  

“In order to get these people trained, we need to get them in a couple of weeks in advance,” he said. “This year it’s on a Tuesday, I think commercially it gives you a little bit of a bonus, because we didn’t have that Monday,” said Berlenger of how this year’s celebration will differ from years previous. 

He also said hopefully he will be able to have reliable electricity this year in reference to last year’s midday power outage caused by a nefarious squirrel making untoward contact with the power lines.

“We see a huge inflow of people on Canada Day,” said Katy MacDonald who manages the Leather House on Water street. 

She said the store sees a lot of pedestrian traffic while being located along the parade route.

“We make sure that we’ve got lots of staff ready to greet lots of people and we make sure we all wear red and white.” 

Not only will the town be bustling, so will the harbour. 

“Canada day activities are so well done,” said Lisa Eldridge, co-founder of Quoddy Link Marine whale watching tours. 

Eldridge said she appreciates all the people involved in the town that make Canada Day in Saint Andrews special.

“We always prepare our passengers to come early for parking because that’s always a little bit of an issue in Saint Andrews and most small towns, especially resource towns.”

Hanselpacker said the town is prepared in the case of rain. 

“The arena here will be the hub for activities if we do end up moving it inside due to the rain,” he said. 

He said the town will only move the festivities inside the W. C. O’Neill Arena in the event of heavy rain. 

Hanselpacker said the Town of Saint Andrews Parks & Recreation Facebook page is the best place to go for event updates and the full schedule.