Tourism in Richmond County

The countdown is on until Christmas. There are just 25 days until the big day is here. I love the holidays; everyone is out putting up their decorations, the children are making their Christmas lists and every community is hosting events that are so much fun to attend. And Richmond and the surrounding areas have a wonderful variety of events planned. On November 30th, Richmond Academy will be hosting their first Annual Christmas Craft Fair and Variety show from 6 to 9pm at Richmond Academy. On December 2nd, St. Peter’s will be hosting the lighting of the Village Christmas Tree, located next to Foodland Grocery, at 6pm with Santa present to give out candy canes to all the children. Following the tree lighting there will be live entertainment and refreshments at the St. Peter’s Fire Hall. Also on the 2nd, there will be a Family Square Dance held at the United Church Hall in St. Peter’s from 7 to 9pm with Music by Donna Marie DeWolfe and Al Martin, so dust of your dancing shoes and come and enjoy the music. A Relay for Life fundraiser will be held at the MacBouch Beverage Room and Restaurant in St. Peter’s on December 3rd, from 1-4pm. The event will have an auction with Christmas items, baked goods and a 50/50 ticket draw and great music from local entertainers. Also on December 3rd, the Noel Isle Madame Community Christmas will take place at LeNoir Landing in Arichat from 2:30pm until 6pm. And there will be a Christmas Bazaar and Tea held at the Strait Area Evergreen Senior Club in Port Hawkesbury from 1-4pm. On December 4th, a Christmas Bingo will be held at the Riverdale Community Centre in Lower River starting at 2pm. Also on the 4th, there will be Community Breakfast held at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 150 in Arichat from 8am until 11am. There will also be Merchandise Bingo held at the Fourchu Hall starting at 2pm. And make sure to take in the Children’s Christmas Concert at the Lakeside Community Centre in Sampsonville on the 4th ;what a perfect event to gets us into the holiday spirit. The concert will start at 2pm.

With the Christmas season quickly approaching, we are always trying to find something different to give as gifts or send out to the people we care about during the holidays. I always look forward to going to the mail box and finding Christmas Cards from family and friends, it is such a heartwarming traditional way of keeping in touch with the people you care about over the holidays. If you are looking for a card that will also remind your friends of home, the St. Peter’s Community Club may have just the answer for you. The winning photos from the Community Clubs Photo Contest have been chosen and are now available as delightful winterscape cards. The Cards are $6 for a pack of six cards (one from each photographer) and 6 envelopes. This is a fundraising effort with all the proceeds donated to the Nicolas Denys Museum, in St. Peter’s. The cards are available at Jeantie's Mini-Mart, Shamrock Store, C & M Video, Home Hardware in St. Peter's, Fleur de Lis Store (Rockdale), the East Coast Credit Unions in Richmond County and St. Josephs Credit Union.

To help lessen the stress of Christmas shopping, Richmond County has some great shopping locations that will make picking that special gift item a lot easier. Glad Tidings the Christmas Shoppe in St. Peter’s, is always a must when doing your Christmas shopping. Lynn’s Flowers and Gifts, Mac’s Celtic Shop and Lawton’s Drug Store, also have a beautiful variety of Christmas gift ideas to suit your shopping needs. And don’t forget Forget Me Nots Gift Shop located in St. Georges Channel, where you can find 90% locally made gift items, just perfect for Christmas giving. In Petit de Grat, La Picasse gift boutique has some excellent gift ideas for the Christmas season. Well I hope, this will help with your Christmas shopping, until next week have fun as you prepare for the holidays.

Find Your Holiday Spirit at Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design

Wow! It is less than a week away from Holiday Spirit. This annual fundraising event will kick off with an evening of fun, craft, entertainment, and refreshments by Allegro on Thursday, December 1st from 5pm to 9pm. The event promises to entertain you and fill your spirit with martinis & canapes Thursday December 1st, 5pm to 9pm. Tickets are $35. Following the evening event on December 1st, an artisan boutique shopping experience will take place on the 3rd Floor Loft of the Centre for Craft and Design on December 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. For more information on Holiday Spirit or to reserve your tickets for this evening shopping event, contact Tim at 539.7491 ext 116. Holiday Spirit, find yours at Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design!Below are the dates and times for this festive event:

December 1st, 5pm to 9pm (Private Shopping Party, by ticket only)
December 2nd, 5pm to 8pm
December 3rd, 10am to 6pm
December 4th, 12pm to 5pm

Holiday Spirit is a fine craft market to help discerning shoppers find that special one-of-a-kind gift for those on their Christmas Lists.

This event is sure to draw shoppers from near and far and the new holiday advertisement from the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design is sure to attract lots of interest for Cape Breton.
The Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design's advertisement for Holiday Spirit aired this week on CTV. If you have not had a chance to see it, click on the title of this post to check it out.

Christmas Concert at the Fortress of Louisbourg

During the holiday season I love to take in as many of the holiday concerts and special events as I can. It is the perfect way to get into the spirit of Christmas. This information has just come to my attention about a Christmas event taking place at the Fortress of Louisbourg that you will definitely be interested in, so I am passing it along. Hope to see you there.


December 11, 2011
Holiday Harmonies

Join us in celebration of the holiday season at the Fortress of Louisbourg for our annual holiday concert. 'Holiday Harmonies' features Coro Cantabile and tickets are just $25.00.

Venez célébrer la saison des Fêtes avec nous à la Forteresse de Louisbourg lors de notre concert des Fêtes annuel. « Holiday Harmonies» met en vedette la chorale Coro Cantabile. Les billets sont 25$.

Fortress Louisbourg Association and Sydney Architectural Conservation Society presents -

HOLIDAY HARMONIES, Sunday December 11 from 3 to 5 pm, in the Fortress Louisbourg 18th Century Chapel featuring the CORO CANTABILE.Tickets are $25.00 each by advanced credit card sale by calling 733-3552.
Refreshments and a special presentation at intermission.

Tickets are $25.00 each by advanced credit card sale by calling 733-3552.

Refreshments and a special presentation at intermission.

Great Christmas Gift Ideas from LaPicasse

This information has just come to me from the desk of LaPicasse, the French Cultural Center in Petit de Grat. This may interest anyone looking for Christmas gift items from our Acadienne Region, so I would like to pass it along.

Des nouveautés à La Boutique de La Picasse : Des photos acadiennes cadrées, des cartes de souhaite acadiennes générale et des cartes acadienne de NOËL. Nous avons eu le livre ‘’Acadian Lives in Cape Breton’’ et aussi des livres d’enfants variés. Venez ouère et supporter nos artistes locales. Pour plus d’information, appelé 226-0149.



The Boutique at La Picasse now has an assortment of Acadian cards, general Acadian Christmas cards and Acadian framed photos. We also have the book ‘’ ’Acadian Lives in Cape Breton’’ and we also have a variety of children books. Come visit our well stocked Boutique at La Picasse, in Petit de Grat and support our local artists. For more information please call 226-0149.

Tourism in Richmond County

Richmond County is gearing up for the holiday season, and what better way to get in the spirit of the season than attending the Festival of Trees. Yes, the Festival of Trees will be taking place on Saturday, November 19th and Sunday, November 20th. This is one of my favorite festivals because it is such an uplifting event. First, it is for a great cause with donations coming in for the Food Bank and second, it gets the whole community in the mood for Christmas. The children take part decorating their entries, either in the individual or child group categories, the community groups as well as the retail and commercial industry always do a spectacular job with their entries. This year's festival has an excellent schedule with lots of events planned for the whole family, including the highlight of the event, a visit from Santa.
This year's event includes a Family Pancake Breakfast from 9 to 10:30am with Santa Claus available for a Picture Session with the kids from 10:30 until 11:30am. The Kidd Brothers will be on hand with their entertaining and interactive children's band from 11:30am until 12:30pm and the very popular Santa's Corner is back again this year with the children taking part in making crafts, a coloring contest, and making up a Wish List for Santa taking place from 1pm to 4pm. The Official Tree Lighting takes place at 6pm followed by the reading of the classic Christmas story "The Night Before Christmas" read by one of the Elves at Santa's Workshop, with milk and cookies for the kids. Following this there will be live entertainment from 6:30 to 8:30pm, followed by mulled cider and hot chocolate served with Cape Breton's favorite treat on any occasion, oat cakes.On Sunday, the festival will run from 12pm until 2pm. The schedule of events include viewing and voting for your favorite Christmas tree, cookie decorating, mingling with your favorite fictional characters, the silent auction will continue, and Santa will again be on hand for pictures with the children. With live entertainment running from 1pm until 2pm. Upon completion of voting and the Silent Auction, there will be the presentation of awards for the best trees as well as the awarding of items to the lucky winners of the Silent Auction. Sounds like lots of fun, so bring the kids out to the Festival of Trees on this Saturday and Sunday. Now where did I put my Christmas decorations?

Tourism in Richmond County

The tourism season on Cape Breton has come to an end for another season. Now we have the opportunity to look back at this past season and see how the island fared in the tourism market and start to plan for the future. This past season Cape Breton witnessed some remarkable feats in its tourism industry. First being designated as the number one island destination in North America and second, being named third best island destination in the world; that is definitely something to be proud of. It is now our goal to keep our standing at this top class level in order to continue to draw visitors from around the world. The Bras d’Or Lakes also received recognition and drew attention to the island when it attained designation as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. These two factors probably had a lot to do with well known travel writers from around the globe traveling to Cape Breton to experience first-hand our culture, scenery and experiences for which we are known.
This past season Destination Cape Breton Association worked diligently to increase our presence in the tourism market. It placed an information kiosk on the Halifax waterfront in order to direct visitors to our area. It also made extensive upgrades to the CBIsland.com website, which was an asset to the tourism operators, making it more efficient for them to effectively update their individual listings and give visitors who are planning to travel to Cape Breton a more complete view of what the island has to offer. Numbers pertaining to visitors to the area were down in the first part of the season but made a rebound in the latter part of the summer and into October. Overall Cape Breton fared very well with approximately 90,000 plus visitors paying Cape Breton a call. These numbers were higher than those seen in other tourism locations in Nova Scotia. DCBA continues to move forward with plans to best market the island to insure that the tourism industry continues to grow. They will be holding information sessions around the island with stakeholders of the tourism industry, where the DCBA staff will take the opportunity to highlight some of the islands exciting milestones and accomplishments, which are primarily as a result of the operators’, businesses’, and community organizations’ commitment and support to Cape Breton’s growing tourism industry. Operators will be updated on the opportunities available to become more involved within the industry throughout 2012. These sessions, which are free to the public, will be a great place to network, a chance to keep up-to-date on the many successes in the industry and an excellent opportunity to become more involved in the community. The sessions will take place December 5th - Inverary Inn in Baddeck 10:00 am, December 6th - Inverness Fire Hall 1:00 pm, December 7th - Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre 10:00 am, December 7th - Bras d’Or Lakes Inn, St. Peter’s 1:30 pm and December 9th - Delta, Sydney 10:00 am. To register go to http://www.cbisland.com/signup/.
This past season also saw some changes made to the tourism scene in Richmond County. Destination Richmond Tourism Cooperative dissolved its association, leaving the tourism industry in Richmond fully under the guidance of Jeff Stanley at the Municipality’s Economic Development and Tourism Department. Charlene Marshall who had been Destination Richmond’s Partnership Coordinator moved over to the Municipality’s Tourism Department for the initial transition, but has since taken a teaching position with the Nova Scotia Community College. Having worked closely with Charlene I am very sorry to see her leave the tourism field and want to express my thanks for all she tried to accomplish during her time in charge of DRTC.

View of Richmond

With the end of the traditional tourism season on Cape Breton, it gives us a chance to look back at this past season and start to plan for the next. This past season Cape Breton has witnessed some remarkable feats in its tourism industry. First being designated as the Number one island destination in North America and second, being named third best island destination in the world; that is definitely something to be proud of. It is now our goal to keep our standing at this top class level in order to continue to draw visitors from around the world. Cape Breton also saw the Bras d’Or Lakes receive the designation as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, which also helps draw attention from around the world. This past season some of the best known travel writers from around the globe traveled to Cape Breton to experience firsthand our Cape Breton culture for which we are known. And Destination Cape Breton Association has worked very diligently increasing our presence in the Halifax mainstream and have also undergone an extensive upgrade to the CBIsland.com website, which is an asset to our operators, so they can effectively update their individual listings and give our visitors a more complete view of what the island has to offer.

DCBA continues to move forward with plans and learning sessions to insure that the tourism industry continues to grow. And as part of this effort a series of free information sessions will be held around the island to which all industry operators are invited to attend. During these sessions, DCBA staff will take the opportunity to highlight some exciting milestones and accomplishments to date, primarily as a result of the operators, businesses and communities organizations commitment and support to Cape Breton’s growing tourism industry. Operators will be updated on the opportunities available to become more involved within the industry throughout 2012. These sessions will be a great place to network, a chance to keep up-to-date on the many successes in the industry and an excellent opportunity to become more involved in the community. The sessions will take place December 5th - Inverary Inn in Baddeck 10:00 am, December 6th - Inverness Fire Hall 1:00 pm, December 7th - Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre 10:00 am, December 7th - Bras d’Or Lakes Inn, St. Peter’s 1:30 pm and December 9th - Delta, Sydney 10:00 am. To register go to http://www.cbisland.com/signup/.