Happy Canada Day

The 152nd Canada Day (formerly Dominion Day) was a blast. The Chronicle family was on the road of the Royal Line down to the Village of Rosemary for the annual festivities. This year saw the fun of the bubble people on water, pickle ball, air brush tattoos, food trucks, the 30th Rosemary School Reunion, Gem MB Youth fundraising, bungee seat, Beach Volley Ball Tournament, Mobile Escape Room (sorry need to catch our breath)…. oh and it kicked off with a pancake breakfast, a Parade (10 a.m.)-where you will note first responders from Patricia, Duchess and Rosemary— with many vintage and fancy cars in the Show & Shine along main street that followed, oh and a pop-up market of vendors.

Whew! Poppa and Grandma met us from Countess for a picnic in the midst of the fun. This evening there will be fireworks at dusk if you are in the area!

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words…so I leave you with a photo montage of a great day!

Canada Day

A week away from what once was known as “Dominion Day”. It was the celebration of the creation of the Dominion of Canada, by The British North America Act, July 1, 1867. In 1879 the day became and official holiday. On Oct. 27, 1982 it was renamed to the now familiar Canada Day.

This Canada Day, come down the Royal Line and celebrate with the neighbours in Rosemary:

The 100 yearish challenge

It has been a challenge on social media, the take your first profile picture and today’s or the #10yearchallenge. Well, we at the Countess Chronicle wanted to be in on the fun with our writings of parades, so here is our 100 year challenge.

The stage coach line originated in Gleichen for mail delivery, and then grew into a passenger line in the area. Today our stage coach appears in local parades, and has been known to give folks rides around such great places as Rosemary, Alberta and in Countess.

Felix Warren was the driver of the stage coach back in the day, and in 1919 brought it to the Calgary Stampede Parade. Today our stage coach driver is Ms. Sherry for our parades, and this past summer she brought it into Brooks, AB.

Now the question of our 100 year challenge is, who drives it best?

Playhouse Community Tour 2014

As promised at the 2013 celebration the playhouse once again hit the road for the parade season in 2014. This time to make wishes come true for kids in support of Children’s Wish. The communities new what to expect as part of our travelling playhouse with the 1923 Hahn Pumper Truck and Stage Coach. Donations were taken in the playhouse piggy bank on wheels, and folks could also enter to win a playhouse end of the summer at the celebration at Countess Country Museum.

Great fun was had (some images here) and other fun:

Oh and did we mention we pulled in over $13,000 to grant wishes?

And we celebrated (childrens wish (1)1) with a truly traditional prairie activity, a playhouse raising to grant a wish for a great kid named Ben.

Some great shots of the celebration:

Finally, walls were prepped at the celebration for great fun to come in Okotoks as all the pieces were brought together:

Thank you Countess and Friends for making wishes come true!

Countess Playin’ 4 Keeps 2013 Parades

Doing newspaper archive research is fun for it creates a slice of life of the past that the only equivalent to understand today would be mining social media. Discovering day in the life of, sports, religion, history and the such. One of the most reported on stories in the Bassano Recorder during the 1930’s was the Red Cross drives. Why in the 1930’s? For those who do not know, it was the Great Depression. The stock market crashed in 1929, and then the droughts and grasshoppers hit the prairies like an Old Testament Cecil B. Demille movie. It is stories of neighbours helping neighbours.

This is inspirational when we look at the recent history of Countess that saw two back to back summers where we reached out to help our neighbour. The first is an all to familiar place for many families in Southern Alberta, Calgary’s Alberta’s Children’s Hospital.

We spent the summer with playhouse floats raising money, and taking names for a raffle draw at the end wind up. It involved our historic 1923 Hahn Pumper Truck, and our stage coach. In the end we raised $10, 686.89, and celebrated with a fun western themed BBQ extravaganza.

Press release: first annual playhouse community tour.

Photo Gallery of the Tour

Just more community coming together, like when we were a part of the historic Red Cross Drives!