For the second year running, the Oceans Day Festival will be taking over Friendship Park in Sechelt this Saturday, June 9 from noon to 4 p.m. to celebrate World Oceans Day.
“We’re growing it in a very grassroots way,” said Naomi Fleschhut, program manager with the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association (SCCA), which is organizing the event in partnership with the District of Sechelt.
The goal is to bring together local and regional organizations with interests in ocean conservation to educate the public.
The event is geared towards families. “Everybody gets a little passport and it’s a guide to the different activities and they get stamps in their passport for a chance to win prizes,” Fleschhut said. Last year they gave away 150 passports to families. “I’m hoping we have at least 500 people come out this year,” she said.
Sechelt Councillor Noel Muller, Mayor Bruce Milne and staff are involved and the district has also contributed funding to support the day’s activities. The Sechelt Downtown Business Association is contributing tents to organizers, and local businesses and organizations have provided approximately $500 in prizes, which include four passes to the Vancouver Aquarium’s Vortex exhibit, Halfmoon Sea Kayaks tandem kayak rentals, fishing rods and T-shirts.
The festival will also feature stand-up paddleboard demos, a hoola dance demo, live music from Chatelech sextet funk band Deep Water Sound, beach volleyball, interactive art installations and a community shoreline cleanup.
World Oceans Day may be an international event, but it has Canadian roots. In 1992, the Canadian delegation at the Rio De Janeiro Earth Summit proposed the concept and in 2008 the United Nations formalized it. Since then it has been celebrated internationally.
“In Sechelt we have 52 beach accesses now. Every neighbourhood has a beach access and you’re surrounded basically on all sides by ocean and inlet,” Flesch-hut said. “Whether it’s refusing single-use plastics to learning about how you can support the recovery of whales in Howe Sound, I’m hoping people get inspired, feel connected to the ocean and then start to take action.”
