Fort Toulouse 300 Celebrations in St. Peter's "What a Blast"

 

Entertainment at the Fort Toulouse 300's  Beggar's Banquet

Sabine The French Wench gets Friendly

 
Fort Toulouse Most Wanted Taken off To Jail

 

 The most wanted behind bars

 

Cannon Fire at Fort Toulouse Celebrations

 

Musket fire at St. Peter's Canal

Fort Toulouse300 Celebrations were definitely a success on Saturday. The weather was a little grey first thing in the morning but it turned out to be a beautiful day. Tilile from Arichat was over and got some great shots from the Turning the Tides segment having the great fortune to be able to capture a boat coming through the Canal. Back on Battery Park side of the Canal activities were in full swing with the Potlotek First Nations elder Robert Pictou starting the events with a Native Smudging Ceremony. The 18 Century Market drew a great deal of interest from locals and visitors alike with a wide variety of items being offered for sale from delicious mouth watering bread and rolls to Encore Jewellery. As did the Beggar’s Banquet, where folks ate, drank and were merry with the help of Sabine the French Wench. To help celebrate this historic event many of our very talented Acadien entertainers volunteered their time to perform on Saturday, including Leona Burkey,  Adam Cooke, Kenny Pettitpas, Jaden Seymour, Rosie and Kayla Bona, Wendy Abbot and Rosie Sampson and Macayla Mathews and Grace DeWolfe. As well we had a great Native Component present during the celebrations since the Mikmaq were such an important part of our history. Native performers included the Potlotek First Nations Drum group under Edward Doucette and the Potlotek dancers under the leadership of Laurie Doucette. The native presentation on the making of the traditional bread (four cents) was done by Belinda GooGoo from Chapel Island at the Natural Resources Campfire series which took place at Battery Park. Also during the days activities, Pamela Samson from the St. Peter's Library was on hand with a display of books on Fort Toulouse and to inform visitors of our rich history.
During the evening members of the Basque family shared ghost stories with the audience, which were lots of fun. During the days festivities some of St. Peter's Most Wanted desperados which included Parker Stone, Blair Martell and Gerry Gibson spent their sentence in jail, in the company of Sabine the French Wench, raising in access of $1000.00 for the Lighthouse preservation campaign. Nicolas Denys festival which ran the entire week and which had been jam packed with community events came to a close on Sunday with visitors taking in the very popular Parish Potluck Dinner followed by the Festival Parade.