Record crowd celebrates Vaisakhi in Surrey

Surrey’s Vaisakhi parade broke attendance records Saturday, drawing a crowd of almost 500,000 people, including visitors from all over the world.

Beginning before 9 a.m., 20 floats moved slowly through Newton, starting and ending at the Gudwara Sahib Dasmesh Darbar temple late in the afternoon. The sunshine brought huge crowds to the streets, where families and businesses set up tents to offer free food and stages with various entertainment.

“I’m shocked at the numbers,” said organizer Moninder Singh. “It has turned into an international event. People have heard about it and they want to be here.”

Buses of people from Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle and even California travelled to Surrey to celebrate. The multicultural crowd — which almost exceeded the population of Surrey — included visitors from around the world, as well as politicians of all stripes.

For the first time, the parade was opened by the Kwantlen First Nation, which welcomed the event on its unceded territory, said Singh, adding he hopes the welcome will become a yearly tradition.

“The mood is vibrant,” he said. “There’s lots of different food and tons of it for everyone.”

In the afternoon, the crowds continued to grow, with traffic backedup on roads leading into the area. Cellphone service was patchy likely because of the number of people at the event.

Surrey RCMP reminded people to have a plan to reunite with lost children, explaining that in the past, officers have responded to dozens of incidents of missing children and elderly people.

Last weekend, thousands of people attended the Vancouver Vaisakhi parade, which closed several streets near the Sikh temple on Ross Street. The Vancouver event draws fewer people than the Surrey parade.

Vaisakhi was traditionally the time when farmers put their sickles to harvest and celebrated the coming of a new year, according to the Surrey Vaisakhi website. However, since 1699, it has also become a holy celebration marking the most important day in their religious calendar, the day the Khalsa was created.