Torch lights up New Brunswick communities
Published Tuesday November 24th, 2009
Southeastern NBers line streets to take part in Olympic history
In large crowds and small huddles, on sidewalks, fairgrounds and schoolyards, southeastern New Brunswickers came out yesterday to greet the Olympic Flame.
They cheered and clapped and laughed and hugged and -- more than you might expect from reserved Canadians -- burst into spontaneous singing of O Canada.
On the 25th day of the flame's 106-day journey from coast to coast to coast on its way to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the fire spread to New Brunswick.
The flame began its day in Summerside, but the first leg of the New Brunswick journey was through the streets of Port Elgin. There, Bianca Hunter of Aulac was first to bear the torch, it having been driven in from Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island. Reflecting some of the flame's magic draw, among those watching as Bianca handed it off to Brent Jacob of Trois-Ruisseaux were Winnipeg resident Don Chaboyer, and his son's family from Vermont. As Brian Chaboyer, his wife Heather Craig, their daughter Rowan and son Drew were all on their way to P.E.I. with Grampie, Brian checked online to find a place where their journey would intersect with the Olympic Flame, and Port Elgin was the spot.
Brent ran it across the Gasperau River, before handing it off to the third and final torchbearer in the community's leg of the relay, Port Elgin Elementary School student Jessie Bourque. Jessie rode onto his school ground aboard a Can-Am Spyder from Hi-Tech Power Sports in Moncton, driven by Moncton resident Graham Chennell.
The school kids who came out to wildly cheer their classmate were just the opening act of a patriotic community celebration that would play out again in Cap-Pelé, Shediac, Memramcook, and Sackville.
In Cap-Pelé, Moncton's Alvin Richard repeated a thrill he first had in 1988, when he was among those who carried the Olympic Torch on its journey to the Calgary Winter Olympics. As he and Doreen Gallant of Bouctouche touched torches in front of the statue of the angel that is Cap-Pelé's heart, Alvin's son Jean-Luc was at his side, wearing the track suit his father had donned in 1988.
"It's all in the family for us too," Doreen said.
Indeed, In Shediac, Doreen's father-in-law George Gallant lit the cauldron at the outdoor community celebration at Festival Arena. The well known long distance runner was the top Canadian finisher at the Boston Marathon for many years, and holds a number of regional and national titles and in the masters category, even a world title.
The 80 year old Gallant, who's had a run named after him in Shediac for 30 years now, has been ailing recently. However, he rose from a wheelchair to take the flame and helped by his sons, took to the stage for the ceremony to raucous and heartfelt cheering from generations of his friends and neighbours.
Shediac was one of 189 celebration communities across Canada, and residents were treated to local entertainers like Melanie Morgan as well as the touring acrobats, artists and drummers who came with the Vancouver Olympic Committee.
After the celebration it was back on the road again, with the last two handoffs of the flame coming at Rotary Park, where more than a few of the Torch Relay officials who are travelling across Canada with it took time to pose with Shediac's iconic giant lobster.
Just east of Shediac's new Sobeys store, the flame was passed back to the miner's lantern it is kept in between community runs, loaded aboard a truck and zipped off to Memramcook, leaving a handful of people who had waited for it west of Sobeys disappointed.
That was a scene repeated in a couple other places during the day, as some falsely assumed the torch was carried by humans every step of the way, as it had been for the Calgary Olympics 21 years ago. The vast majority, however, seemed to have learned from the media and the Vancouver Olympic Committee website where to position themselves for the best vantage points.
In Memramcook, the crew from one of the many vehicles in the Torch Relay caravan were spotted inspecting a smashed side mirror on their truck while they waited for that leg of the run to start, though in the rush of what is an operation with almost military precision and timing, there was no time for them to dwell on the problem, or for a reporter to ask what had happened.
In a brief but special ceremony at the Monument Lefebvre, the Olympic Odyssey intersected with the Acadian Odyssey, before the torch headed off again down Centrale Street and onto the Memramcook marsh.
Large crowds lined the streets in Sackville, near the Flame's start point in front of the McDonalds/Esso, at the Sackville Civic Centre, where it was officially greeted, and especially along the route it took past the Mount Allison University campus and through the heart of the town at the corner of York and Bridges.
Many in the crowd knew Lisa Fury-Allen of Point-de-Bute and cheered especially hard as she ran toward Maurice LeBlanc of Dieppe, who was waiting in front of the local branch of Torch Relay sponsor RBC.
But no one in Sackville was as loud as a group of more than 80 kids from Forest Glen School in Moncton, who went nuts when one of their teachers, Krista Richard, carried the torch along Bridges Street. They even out-hooted the whistle of a CN freight train passing nearby.
And then the torch had travelled like wildfire through another New Brunswick community, and it was back in the miner's lamp and back on the highway for the trip to Dieppe and Moncton.
Today, starting at 7 a.m., the torch will be carried down Main Street, up Lutz Street and out Mountain Road in Moncton before being ferried by vehicle to Riverview. It sets out on a loop of Riverview from a spot just west of the causeway, then up Trites, east on Whitepine to Pine Glen Road and back to Coverdale Road. It will stop west of the Gunningsville Bridge and then be ferried to Lower Coverdale for a brief run there. And then it will bunny hop by vehicle for short relays at Hillsborough, Hopewell, the Hopewell Rocks, Riverside-Albert, Alma and Fundy National Park, before being driven to Sussex.
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