In praise of small-town traditions
Old-fashioned: Dancing ’round the maypole in The Royal City, 145 years on
My town has royal roots so deep, we still claim bragging rights as the first capital of the new colony that was B.C.; so deep, we still take pride in being called The Royal City, our nickname after being dubbed New Westminster in 1859 by Queen Victoria.
And so deep that we still support and cherish tradition, never more so than every year around Victoria Day when hundreds of locals fill the bleachers and crowd the infield grass at Queens Park Stadium for an afternoon of May Day celebrations.
The event is part of the annual Hyack Festival, another lovely New Westminster tradition that features the Hyack Parade, Antique Fair, Uptown Street Fest, the Ancient and Honourable Hyack Anvil Battery and the Heritage Homes Tour & Tea.
And, of course, May Day, which fell on Wednesday this week and saw students and teachers from the city’s eight elementary schools, one middle school and one high school on hand for some nostalgia under a bright sun.
There was, over the course of three hours and amid much dancing, an address from a native Indian chief, a spirited performance by the New Westminster Secondary Cheer and Stunt Team and a rendition of O Canada by a teenage songbird.
There were schoolgirls in straw hats and flowered dresses who curtsied with poise, and boisterous boys in starchy shirts and short pants who marched purposefully beside them, hands on hips.
There were Maple Leaf, Union Jack and B.C. flags flapping in the breeze and men in brightred blazers stoking a forge for the traditional anvil salute.
There was the New Westminster secondary school marching band, a loquacious politician or two, a Flower Girl from May Day 1968, too much talking by school officials, attendance by the St. John Ambulance, appearances by Miss New Westminster, Miss Hyack and Miss Friendship, a choir of students singing True North Strong and Free and a junior concert band with a conductor playing the Coronation March.
The latter ushered in the 2015 Royal Suite, the May Queen and her Royal Knight leading a parade of boys in white shirts and red vests and girls wearing flower garlands in their hair and fur-trimmed white capes over white dresses and stockings.
And then dozens of Grade 3 boys and girls took the field, dancing to Nuts in May and quickstepping a painstakingly choreographed folk dance around the 22 maypoles, each topped with a crown fashioned from flowers.
For the big event, the maypole dance, a select group of boys and girls held tight to ribbons and wove in and around each other and the poles.
Throughout it all, spectators clapped and cheered, photos were snapped and not a few grandparents teared up with pride.
One of those, truth be told, was me, watching my handsome eight-year-old grandson Jack linking arms with his pretty dancing partner Elle Lemieux, their nervous energy and proud smiles after so many weeks of practice reminding me of my own son and daughter at their May Days many years ago.
We were also reminded of history’s lasting power, and that the first New Westminster May Day, in 1870, was rained out and featured sports and a free lunch. Today, the free lunch lives on courtesy of food donated by local restaurants, and is awarded by random draw to assorted classrooms, whose students shrieked with delight at each announcement.
This, then, is what nostalgia looks like in 2015.
This, then, is how one Metro Vancouver community has reinvented pomp and circumstance to celebrate its legacies and revel in its anachronisms.
We don’t hear much any more about small-town traditions like May Day, perhaps because children dancing around a maypole isn’t as newsworthy or hipster chic as, you know, a pot protest in the big city.
But even New Westminster’s newly elected and shockingly young mayor gets it.
“We’re fortunate to live in a city with long-held traditions,” Jonathan Cote told the cheering crowd, “and this is certainly one of them.”
At one point during Wednesday’s festivities, a young mother seated in front of me turned around and said: “This is really quite old-fashioned, isn’t it?”
Yes, thankfully, it is.