Jay and I headed up to uptown New Westminster around 4:00 this afternoon for BC Recovery Day. Leaving the car behind was an easy call. Sixth Street was completely blocked off to traffic, turning any thought of parking into pure fantasy. The buses were rerouted as expected, meaning we stood at the stop an extra ten minutes, but taking transit saved us the headache of crawling through diversionsWe usually miss this event entirely. It lands right around Jay’s birthday in September, a time of year when we are almost always away on a trip. Being home to actually catch it this year made the sheer scale of the thing obvious. They were anticipating crowds upwards of 40,000 people. Considering New Westminster only has around 85,000 residents, having half the equivalent city’s population in a six-block stretch of Uptown is quite something.
What started out rather modestly back in 2012 as part of the broader national Recovery Day movement has morphed into one of the largest mental health and addiction recovery events in the world. Over the past decade and a half, it expanded from a modest grassroots gathering into a massive, street festival packed with two hundred community booths, artisans, food trucks, and thousands of people out celebrating hope and community.
It is always satisfying to see New West stage events of this caliber and draw people in from all across the Lower Mainland. The city’s distinct advantage has always been its compact size right in the middle of the region. When something takes over our uptown, the entire community feels alive with it.