Residents Donate for Connaught Park

“We were going to take the tree last year, but (the property-owner) wanted to keep it for another year,” explained Town tree inspector Roger Ducharme. Luckily, they also had another pine tree from a Simcoe Avenue resident, Maria Pereira, come down at the same time. “So we decided that we might as well recover the trees anyway and keep them green for awhile longer.”

Ducharme’s inspiration came from the fact that many big cities, such as New York, have a tradition of putting up a massive Christmas tree for the holidays. He thought: “Why not do the same here?”

While it’s the third year that Christmas trees have been put up in Connaught Park, it’s the first time that the Town has been lucky enough to receive them from residents. In the past two years, a tree was installed there facing the Cornwall bridge to attract more residents to the Town-centre and encourage more patronage of the businesses there, Mayor Vera Danyluk noted.

Unfortunately, only one of the trees managed to survive its initial installation. On Wednesday, November 28, Pereira’s tree was meticulously taken down by a Public Works crew, brought to the Rose Garden section of the park, and installed there. “There were quite a few people working together to make sure that everything was done properly,” she noted.

Later that afternoon, as her husband was driving by the park, one of the Public Works employees bowed down, with his arm sweeping across his body, proudly presenting the tree.

When Pereira went to see the tree herself, she was “all excited”. However, she opted not to take a photo until it was decorated. But that chance never came.

Early the next morning, Ducharme and another supervisor passed by that part of the park and saw that everything was alright. Apparently, some passing schoolchildren, he speculated, were somehow able to unravel the rope connecting the tree and the cinder blocks and down it went.

In the ensuing crash, the treetop came off and many branches on one side were all broken. “It was a beautiful tree that was going to be put to good use for a few more weeks,” Pereira said. “Thankfully, nobody got hurt when the tree came down.”

With the second tree, they didn’t make the same mistake, reinforcing the base, hiding the ropes, and stabilizing it with spikes wood inside a metal frame around the main trunk. Delayed for a few days by the recent snow storms, it went up late last week and decorated soon after.

If you have the chance, please pass by and appreciate the fine donation by a fellow resident and the work proudly done by Public Works staff. In many ways, it’s their Christmas present for everybody here.

(Photo: Wayne Hiltz)