And not just any Canada Day, it's the 150th Anniversary of the enactment of the Constitution Act, which united the three separate colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a single Dominion within the British Empire called Canada. Hmm.

And it wouldn't be Canada Day without a Parade!

Oh man, I'm loving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (more with them later).



A first for us was seeing a cement mixer in a parade, but this is Coleman and they support their local companies.
We felt very welcomed.
This was an homage to the APP Barracks we just visited yesterday.




We returned to the Legion Hall for a rendition of O Canada, a flag raising and some Canadian beer for Steve.

And what a treat for me to hang out with some Mounties. It truthfully was a goal of mine while in Canada.



Our next stop was the Crowsnest Museum, an integral part of the heritage of this area. It is operated by the Crowsnest Historical Society, which reopened the 1936 former Coleman High School building as a museum. Extensive indoor and outdoor exhibits showcase the social, architectural and coal mining history of the Crowsnest Pass. What an amazing place full of really interesting information.
Here we received our most comprehensive explanation of what coal mining was really like, from the perspective of the laborers. Wow. 
George Orwell really said it best"...all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their  throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel."
I really loved this recreation of the General Store. There was some major love of pasta here and this 31 compartment counter held/holds a variety of fun noodles.

The biggest surprise was this framed print of the Dionne quintuplets (born May 28, 1934). I remember hearing about them, due to a lawsuit but for Canada they were a big deal and are the first quintuplets known to have survived their infancy.

The Dionne girls were born two months premature. After four months with their family, they were made Wards of the King for the next nine years, under the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935. The government, and those around them, began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction in Ontario. In 1998, the sisters reached a $2.8 million settlement with the Ontario government as compensation for their exploitation.
I was intrigued by the jeweler display who was not only a watchmaker and jeweler, but also an issuer of marriage licenses.
And what do you think of this amazing 1930's Gabrieleen Electric Perm Machine? Make me an appointment!
Our last stop was for birthday cake at Flumerfelt Park. Every Canada Day, we learned, has a big birthday cake.
There was a rush when cake was announced, so I helped distribute. Volunteering is BIG in Canada. The people  here are so kind. While I was helping out a bit at the birthday cake cutting rush, I realized that they do things subtly different. No one would pass someone in the line to come to the table full of already cut birthday cake. They waited, blocking the flow, to get the currently being cut piece. So I'm flailing my arms saying, "Don't hold up the line, look at all the cut cake sitting here waiting for you" and they looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I guess it was foreign that they would pass someone who was not moving in line. So very different.