My posts | BC day and the Filberg Festival

This last weekend Comox was happily having it's annual Filberg Festival. This meant that the local park was off-limits, unless you bought a ticket, and that all the streets were riddled with parked cars. The Filberg festival itself could be compared to a Dutch "braderie", but then bigger. Though the festival was impressively well organized and there was a lot to see, the content felt a little bit sub-par to me. There might be a simple reason for this though: we might just be spoiled with too much real culture. An example: when there is a stand here with typical Greek-like art and/or there is a Greek dance to see, most people here can be quite impressed by it. We just go to Greece and get the real thing. Therefore we tend not to be impressed by substitutes. From this side of the globe Greece might be too far away, so anything resembling it is also greatly celebrated. This is just a theory :-)

Besides Filberg Festival there was another reason to celebrate. It was BC Day - or British Columbia Day. This is a local holiday "dedicated to the pioneers who built the colony of British Columbia into the great province it is today." (source) This meant that after the festival everyone moved to the harbor, the local navy did it's thing, and there was a very nice fireworks display at the end. Sadly it was quite dark and I don't have a tripod in Canada, so I had to make do with some railing, but I think I've got a few nice pictures of it.

During the walk back we encountered something I have never seen before in Canada - a real traffic jam! This had also something to do with the nature of festivals here. When it's ended - it's ended. So after the fireworks, why should we start the music again and party until it's morning again, when we also can get home by eleven? So, everyone just went home.

The jam was mostly caused by cars, but also by one elderly man with a motorized cart. He was blocking the way for a few bicyclists who wanted to get through. When they finally were able to get beside him one of them said "I'll race you for it!". The elderly man looked at him, said nothing, pressed a button and his cart rocketed away, leaving me with the happy memory of the astonished look on the face of the bicyclist.