Caring Canadian
Donkin resident receives award for community work.
SYDNEY — A dedicated volunteer with service dating back nearly 60 years has received an honour in recognition of his many accomplishments.
In Ottawa on Monday, Gov. Gen. David Johnston presented Donkin resident Wilf Edmond with the Caring Canadian Award, along with 45 other Canadians who also received the award.
Dominion command of the Royal Canadian Legion nominated him for the award, he said in an interview following the ceremony at Rideau Hall.
Edmond served as Dominion command president from 2008 to 2010. He has also been a member of Royal Canadian Legion branch 5 in Dominion for 56 years.
“I was quite surprised and thought it was quite an honour (to be nominated),” Edmond, 81, said.
As a young man, he served as a clerk in the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corp. in peacetime following the Korean War.
His father served in the First World War, and Edmond had three brothers enlist during the Second World War. Two sons recently retired from the Canadian Forces, and he currently has two grandsons in the military.
“It’s part of our tradition as a family.”
The bulk of his career was spent as a coal miner and manager working in the Caledonia and No. 20 mines, for both the Dominion Coal Company, and its successor, the Cape Breton Development Corp. He retired in 1991.
Edmond also devoted much of his time as a volunteer firefighter, spending 35 years with the Donkin fire department.
In the late 1950s volunteering and helping out in your community was “just the thing to do,” Edmond said.
“Practically everybody belonged to the fire department and it was part of your duty, I guess, as a citizen to join.”
He also managed time for sports and that included coaching hockey at the peewee and bantam levels. Another interest of Edmond’s was baseball where he coached local fastball teams.
After retiring from the coal mines he joined the well-known Men of the Deeps miners’ choir for a four-year period, touring mostly in Canada, as well as in the United States.
He said since his stint as president of Dominion command he took up more performances, this time for residents of nursing homes and hospitals, many of whom are veterans themselves.
“I more or less devote my time to bringing some comfort to those who are shut in here at senior care homes,” said Edmond.
The Caring Canadian Award was created by former governor general Roméo LeBlanc in 1995. It consists of a certificate and a lapel pin.
Edmond attended Monday’s ceremony with his wife of nearly 60 years, Annie, and his daughter, Phyllis Hunter.