The whirlwind tour of Corner Brook

Corner Brook has the biggest Winter Carnival East of Quebec. And these people take Carnival seriously. One year the carnival torch was carried from Marble Mountain to Humber Gardens for the opening ceremony...only problem was that the weather was so bad that the torch kept blowing out and needed to be re-lit several times and visibility on the road was so poor that the Carnival Van hit the runner (Danny Kane) a few times before they finally arrived for the big show.

In 1998, I competed for the ultimate prize....the role of Winter Carnival Ambassador. For two weeks a slew of of local teenagers compete for the two top spots. One girl and one guy would have the honour of representing  the young people in Corner Brook. We build a snow sculpture, did some volunteer work, went curling (I spent more time on my arse than I did sweeping the rocks down the ice) and then we had a grand finale show where the winners were chosen. I was in complete disbelief when I won. I actually turned turned to one of the other girls and congratulated her! I thought she was a shoe in and I never imagined that I would actaully take home the title.

For two weeks I attended every Carnival event possible. We ate a ton of great food, danced, judged contests (seriously if I had to hear Ace of Base one more time at the lip sync contest I was going to lose my toutons!) and got locked out of my house at 3am one random night! The first day back to school after it was all over, I fell asleep in Chemistry class and I don't think my teacher was too impressed! The drawback was that I had to wear this crazy coat that, while festive and historic to the Carnival event, was not exactly my style...

Yup...the embarrassing coat fit over my bump and my mom made me wear it!



The point of that ramble is that this year is the 40th Anniversary of Carnival and they invited the past Ambassadors back to attend a reception to mark the occasion. My flight was suppose to leave at 11:30pm and didn't get off the ground until 1am. At 4am my sister and I crawled into bed and woke up in time to head to the spa. That evening I went to the event and it was great  fun! My cousin Laura was there and it was great to spend some time with her before we both headed to a bingo party...yup a bingo party!

Carnival Queen of '76, Ambassador '98 and 2000



Leif cutting the cake

So much fun being home!

More pictures and stories to come...