Kingston, Ont., fireworks crew prepares for Canada Day

Kingston’s fireworks crew was hard at work on Canada Day preparing for the night’s big show.

The crew spent Canada Day out in the hot sun and humidity getting everything they need to be ready for the Canada Day fireworks display in Kingston.

Pierre Royer, Site Supervisor said that the task is a long and arduous one.

“It takes a crew of four to six people to assemble the mortar racks. And then it takes a significant amount of time to load them with the pyrotechnics, the fireworks,” said Royer, taking a break from hammering nails into the racks.

The crew worked hard beginning at noon on Canada Day, putting the racks together with the mortar tubes and getting everything in order.

Scattered around the site at Point Frederick were boxes upon boxes of firework shells.

Royer says that his favourites are the ones that make the loudest noises.

“I always build the finale first, so I take all the best shots that are in the boxes, all the best pieces of fireworks, and I save them and put them aside because I will fire them last,” he said.

The cost of the entire spectacle is in the thousands of dollars, paid for by the city.

Many of the shells that are fired during the 15-minute show go between 100 and 400 feet into the sky.

“Originally, all of these would have been fired by hand using one of those road flares, then we got into electric matches so you could stand back and fire them electrically. But now we’re using a lot of boxes that don’t require wires.”

He says that the whole process takes more than eight hours to set up and the whole show happens in just minutes but, it’s worth every second.