For the first time since the celebration began in the 1960s, Esquimalt’s Buccaneer Days will not proceed.
Robert McKie, chairman of the organizing committee of Buccaneer Days, said instructions from the District of Esquimalt and public health officials in regard to COVID-19 made it impossible to proceed with the parade, festival and fair scheduled for May 8-10.
“This is the first time Buccaneer Days has ever been cancelled,” McKie said.
Anyone who paid deposits to secure a vendor table in the festival marketplace will be contacted with a refund, the event’s website says.
Those who prepaid for wristband tickets to the fun fair can use them at any future event run by West Coast Amusement Operations, the company behind the midway.
According to the Buccaneer Days website, the spring festival was first celebrated in 1966.
But it can be traced back to before the Second World War and the annual Victoria May Day celebration with its May Pole Dance and the crowning of a May Queen. Those celebrations ended after 1939 and the start of the war.
After 1945 and the end of the war Esquimalt carried on with its own spring festivals. These often incorporated a naval theme until it was formally proclaimed as Buccaneer Days.
