When you look through the history of a town, you’ll often notice the changing ways in which special days and seasons were recognized and celebrated. This information is frequently included in presentations of all types on local history.
Recently, a brief discussion about autumn led to some interesting comments on the events and traditions of the fall months in some other cultures. The conversation soon got around to early New Westminster and what made up the regular, recurrent, anticipated events in the Royal City during the fall months. Not all of these events occurred every year, but there were some that were so valued that they became absolutely symbolic of the season.
Forming the foundation of autumnal activities, there were the crops, the harvest, and the wonderful special days when products of the land started to arrive, frequently to great excitement and anticipation, at the local market. Tables, shelves and bins were full. Loaded wagons crowded nearby. Livestock milled about in pens and corrals. It was, if only temporarily, very much the focus of the entire community
During the years in which the Provincial Exhibition took place in New Westminster, the anticipation of the exhibits, livestock shows, crop and products displays, entertainment and special events, grew throughout the summer months peaking in the fall when the fair was held in Queen’s Park.
Linked with the events in the city was the harvest in the valley and fall often included a special set of excursions on the river. Sternwheel steamboats took residents to a variety of farms and agricultural areas along the river from its mouth to Chilliwack. This was an exciting opportunity to see the fields, sample many different products, and simply have fun prior to the arrival of winter and the river’s icing up.
Also connected to riverboats and autumn was the beginning of the process of winterizing the vessels and preparing places to shelter the boats out of the main channel, where they would be protected from the icy conditions to come.
Of course, many years of the city’s early history included celebrating Halloween. In reading about this particular cultural event, we note that there were usually bonfires, parties, and gatherings with entertainment, special foods, sweets, fireworks, and frequently plenty of mischievous youthful antics. There are wonderful descriptions of large homes and private schools decorated to great spooky, scary effect with huge groups of participants trouping through the halls and rooms hoping to be creatively frightened.
This is but a brief glimpse of an early Royal City autumn. Then, as now, the months of fall were marked by cooler weather, changing colours of the trees, memories of the summer past and anticipation of the winter ahead. Soon there would be Christmas and a New Year, and then they would do it all again – season after season after season.
