Cruising To Take Over Main On Canada Day

With the majority of Canada Day festivities cancelled an unlikely event is about to cruise on in and save the day.

Scheduled for July 1st the Moose Jaw Rolling Car Show is not the way Moose Jaw traditionally celebrates Canada's birthday but with the COVID - 19 pandemic dominating the news it’s likely just one of those things they call the new normal.

The car show itself will not be a traditional stationary one but rather one which will roll up and down Main Street.

Co-organizer Jody Chell said the idea for the Canada Day car show came from Brandon Richardson who owns Deja Vu Chicken.

Richardson had helped plan the Saturday morning auto birthday parades during the COVID - 19 lockdown. The birthday parades were suppose to wrap up on Mother's Day but Richardson had another idea.

“With all of the car shows being cancelled Brandon said why don’t we have a rolling car show? We went instantly from a little two-bit parade to let’s do a car show,” Chell said.

In order to make the car show work the pair looked for other people to help out.

“We spent hours organizing these bithday parades and so we reached out to Rob (Ritchie publisher for the Moose Jaw Express) and said this is too big for us and he said let's do it.”

And that is how the Moose Jaw Rolling Car Show was born.

To be held at 1 pm on July 1st the show will feature cars from near and far plus also a scavenger hunt anyone can take part in. All activities are being set up in order to observe the provincial social distancing rules.

Although pre-registration is encouraged participants can meet in front of the former Zellers in front of the Town and Country Mall starting at 10:30 am. Registration costs $10 with 100 percent of proceeds going to the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank.

“With the regular Canada Day festivities cancelled here is something to do for a couple of hours,” Chell said.

As part of the show several Downtown businesses will be open for at least a few hours as local small retailers continue to recover from being closed due the COVID - 19 provincial emergency health orders.

“We are all about helping promote the small businesses Downtown. We have not asked them for anything.”

As with the now cancelled Sidewalk Days there will be four mobile food as well as an ice cream vendor at the event.

Like all car shows there will be prizes. There will be three major prizes picked by the judges during car registration plus a people's choice award.

The people's choice award will not be selected by traditional paper ballots but from a Facebook livestream where viewers will be asked to select their favourite.

“We have some really great prizes “

Although the car show so far has 50 entries Chell said the car show crowd are often very fickle and chose at the last moment to participate dependent on the weather.

“I was told car show participants are spontaneous as they go by the weather…we hope it does not rain but if it does there is no equipment it can be postponed in a heart beat…this is not as time consuming as a Canada Day event. We (when I was on the Canada Day committee) spent hours planning plus getting the equipment out. It was being there from 6 a.m. to midnight,” Chell said.

Although it has not been confirmed yet there is a motorcycle group also planning a Canada Day Cruise so there is the potential the two groups will cruise at the same time.

UPDATE - The motorcycle show has confirmed they will be part of the Moose Jaw Rolling Car Show.

For those not going cruising there is still an opportunity to be part of a scavenger hunt sponsored by The Moose Jaw Express\Moose Jaw Today.

Starting at 12 pm the scavenger hint is free and open to all. The first 75 entrants will receive a swag bag with a variety of gifts.

The first three people back will receive what are described as some really good prizes.

Residents are encouraged to come out to Main Street but reminded to please practice safe physical distancing.

For more information check out the Moose Jaw Rolling Car Show Facebook page.