Centre Acadien, Université Sainte-Anne

The Church Picnic – Parish and community picnics were very important to social life in Clare. Each local parish and community-volunteer fire department sponsored these events as fundraisers; some continue to this day.

Picnics were normally held on the parish church grounds but many remember the Meteghan Fire Department annual picnic at the Stella Maris School. Imagine the wonder experienced by children seeing their classrooms, desks, and chalkboards used in non-traditional ways! Bingo games in one classroom, rappie pie sales in another, and watermelon at 10 cents a slice (in the late ’50s) in yet another.

Common elements of these eagerly-awaited annual events included the sale of hand-made crafts and foods prepared and donated by parishioners (rappie pie and home-baked sweets proving particularly popular). Volunteers could be seen preparing large quantities of food, such as baked beans, in large pots over open fires – pots probably fabricated in a local blacksmith shop. Lottery tickets were sold in the months preceding the picnic and on the day of the picnic, with prizes for raffles donated by individuals and companies. Popular today is the “Ten Pounds of Lobster” raffle prize.

Also very popular were games of chance, including bingo and the wheel of fortune. The photo featured here shows a group playing a game of chance at the Doucetteville parish church picnic.

Children enjoyed the ring toss, bean bag toss, lollipop pull, and the ‘fish’ pond, to name just a few. The men always enjoyed the games of strength – would the bell at the top of the pole ring after the mallet was swung and hit the target?

When asked what they remember most about these community picnics, the most common answers were “chasing the boys,” i.e., socializing, and “winning the cigar”. A cigar was the prize at the game of strength and it was the one day when the young men smoked them, despite how ill they would feel afterwards.

A modern addition to these community picnics has been the introduction of “white elephant” sales (flea markets). Fund-raising and socialization, however, remain crucial to these storied events.

Topic: Community Life

Date: [ca. 1950]

Reference: John Collier Collection Centre Acadien Photo 11

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