MANY LIGHTS BEING LIT TO CELEBRATE DEMOCRACY

Michèle Raymond
Sunday June 1, 2008

Nova Scotia’s Year of Democracy is well underway, and since I wrote in November of last year about Halifax Atlantic’s special reasons to celebrate the 250th anniversary of representative government in Canada, the people of Halifax Atlantic have jumped in with will and imagination.

The Mainland South Heritage Society has proposed a sparkling set of
celebrations for both our special landmarks, the Dingle Tower and Sambro Island light, and the adhoc Outer City Arts group is planning a participatory art piece as a visual metaphor for democracy itself. Another fledgling group, the International Youth Association, hopes to stage debates that will engage young and old.

This energy and imagination build on a long tradition. The first elected assembly of 22 landholders may have met downtown on 2 October 1758, but its first major commemoration was in Halifax Atlantic.

Even 100 years ago, Nova Scotia’s special place in the history of democracy was recognized. Sir Sandford Fleming, the brilliant Scottish engineer and surveyor who masterminded the Canadian
Pacific Railway and conceived of standard time zones, felt the impulse to celebrate the assembly’s 150th anniversary by donating land at his beloved summer estate, the Dingle, for construction of a monument.

The Memoriial Tower opened in 1912 with spectacular celebrations. MSHS proposes to recreate the celebrations in October (perhaps without royalty in attendance), including the children’s choir and bands, to reinstall the flagpoles (recently discovered intact in the rafters of one of the Dingle Park outbuildings), and to light the Tower itself. It’s hoped that for one day the Northwest Arm ferry will again shuttle parkgoers, as it was doing in 1908, and for decades after, from the historic public wharf at Oakland Road to the
Jollimore wharf and back.

The Slow Food movement, with its focus on local foods, produced on a human scale, has a strong interest in democracy, so there’s a proposal for a festival of local foods at the park, allowing people to experience our special Nova Scotia products.

Nightfall is not the end. Just as the democratic ideal is that in voting, every citizen has a voice, and that no single vote will overwhelm the others, local resident Heather B.Watts has proposed
a lantern festival that will make every voice visible. The Outer City group hopes to hold workshops over the summer, teaching people to make distinctive lanterns to carry in procession on the night of the Festival. Outer City plans workshops in various places, including
schools and seniors residences, and to make sure there is someone to carry the light even for those unable to walk that night.

“Venetian nights” have been a festive tradition on the Northwest Arm since the late 19th century, (revived in recent years by the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron), with lit and decorated boats parading the waters of the Arm; a Venetian night is also planned.

Light is a common theme in these celebrations, and of course Sambro Island light is the famous light in Halifax Atlantic.

Reading the journals of the first Assembly gives a fascinating picture of how the lighthouse came to be built, after considerable debate between the Governor and the elected Assembly. Finally
however, Sambro Island, originally granted to naval Captain John Rous, was given back to the Governor “for a Trifling Acknowledgment”, and a 60-foot stone tower was built in 1758-59, lit by fishoil; Rous’ brother Joseph became lightkeeper.

Since the workhouse and light were built by the same Act of the first
Assembly, and the workhouse is gone, I think Sambro light is arguably the oldest publicly built structure in Canada. In any case, it deserves commemoration as one of the first fruits of democracy, and MSHS proposes to do this by offering boat tours to the island., and onshore, to revive Sambro days, with games, a dance, grand party, and concert. Anyone who’s ever been to the Sambro dinner theatre knows Sambro is lucky enough to have its own anthem in
Sambro by the Sea. In fact, Sambro has generated so many of its own songs that its almost possible to have a concert of Sambro songs.

As MLA, I have to thank the many people who signed the Sambro light petition, the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society, and all who’ve worked to bring the federal Lighthouse Protection Act into being. It’s hoped that Sambro will be one of the first lights to benefit by that Act, and certainly there’s refurbishment afoot.

Democracy 250 allows for more permanent memorials to the anniversary, and to that end, I’m proposing to establish an annual Sambro Island challenge, a sailing race from the Northwest Arm
(off the Dingle Tower, if possible) around Sambro Island light. It will be a full day’s race, and I believe it will draw the eyes of the public to our twin beacons of democracy for years to come.

Thank you again to everyone who is working to shine a light on Halifax Atlantic in this Year of Democracy, and in future.

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