Family Day meant people across Ontario enjoyed a long weekend. Schools and municipal services were closed Monay, as were most businesses.
However, the Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area was a hub of activity for families. Recent weather conditions meant skating and skiing were out, but activities like hiking the trails were popular.
The conservation area’s senior supervisor Keith Powell says they have a number of special activities planned for this Family Day.
“We’re running a fire pit, going to make s’mores, get families gathered around our warming huts. We also have a no-touch scavenger hunt.”
It was enough to keep children excited and occupied, like six-year-old Ava Cherrington: “I like to play in the snow when it’s winter. We’re feeding the chickadees.”
The Museum of Health Care was also a hot spot for parents and grandparents with young children. The museum hosts a Teddy Bear Hospital for children aged three to eight.
Donna O’Connor brought her two granddaughters Lottie and Sadie to the event: “We were looking for something fun to do for Family Day and wanted something interactive, experiential for the girls.”
Children can have their stuffed toys mended by staff.
There was also an educational component to the day. Children learned about what nurses and doctors do.
The museum’s manager Kevin Moorehouse says they hope to take some of the fear out of visiting medical professionals: “We find that it’s really important to break that down with kids, showing them things that a doctor does.
“We have a story about Daisy the doctor who talks to the kids and shows them what they do so it’s not all scary when you go to the doctor. ”
This Family Day is also the 10th anniversary of the provincial holiday. In 2007, Then-premier Dalton McGuinty made the statutory holiday law in Ontario starting in 2008. Since then several more provinces have added their own Family Day holiday.
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