YARMOUTH, N.S. — ERIC BOURQUE
TRI-COUNTY VANGUARD
An activity-filled five days is on tap for this year’s Seafest in Yarmouth, with things getting underway Wednesday afternoon (July 17) with the children’s parade and mayor’s picnic in Frost Park.
Lots will take place between then and the festival’s Sunday night, July 21 wrap-up. The last event on the schedule is a 6 p.m. show by the Catch 22 Comedy Crew.
The street parade returns after an absence of a few years. The parade is set for Saturday (July 20) at 6:30 p.m.
“We had somebody step up to organize it,” said David Outhouse, the Seafest president. “A street parade, a lot of people have been asking for ... so we decided to go with bringing the street parade back.”
SCHEDULE: For details regarding times and locations for all Seafest activities, visit www.seafest.ca
Another change to Seafest this year is that there will be no pageant.
“There was a pageant last year,” Outhouse said. “The decision (not to have one this time) came through the pageant committee. It was just they didn’t have anybody interested, from what I was told.”
A traditional Seafest activity that Outhouse would like to see bounce back is the rum-running competition, which has experienced declining participation in recent years. The rum-running is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Parker Eakins wharf.
To help bring the numbers back up for the rum-running, Outhouse said he approached some local craft beer places about having them enter teams for this year’s competition.
Asked how Seafest this year is looking in a more general sense, he said people seemed to be getting excited and were looking forward to the different things that will be taking place over the festival’s five days.
“We have a lot of entries for the children’s parade and mayor’s picnic in the park,” he said. “The scavenger hunt, every year that keeps growing larger. Then we have the mackerel toss and I’m hoping for a good turnout for the rum-running.”
The scavenger hunt will be held Thursday evening and the mackerel toss is scheduled for Friday at noon.
Organizers say Seafest has something for virtually everyone, whether you’re looking to do some sidewalk shopping, enjoy some music or other entertainment, have something to eat, maybe do some yoga on the waterfront or go on a pub crawl.
There are various tour offerings, a chowder-cooking contest, children’s activities and more.
And this is all in addition to two of the bigger events that happen each year on Seafest weekend, including the classic car show put on by the Roaring 20’s Antique Auto Club (taking place Saturday and Sunday in downtown Yarmouth) and the Sheila Poole 10K, which goes Saturday morning (starting and finishing on Water Street).
The antique auto club also will do its annual classic car cruise through town Friday evening.
Outhouse encourages people to attend Seafest and enjoy what it has to offer.
“Come out, get involved, have fun,” he said.
