Saturday’s Santa Claus Parade in Timmins was one of a long series that goes back to 1949. In last week’s local history feature, we told you of the first one in 1949. Using that template, the annual event finally petered out in the 1960s. Enter business owner and Chamber of Commerce member Brian Blahey. Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says he revived the tradition.
“He started in 1989 with his parade and went right up until a few years ago as the chairman of the parade,” she says.
It was a Saturday morning event until early in the 2000s.
“The parade did go to an evening parade, which was something a little bit different again,” Bachmann explains, “so that we could have light-up floats and different things and that again was really well supported in the community. Some of the first parades of that had about 15-18,000 people in the street.”
Of course, there was no parade in 2020, kicked to the curb by the COVID-19 pandemic.