John Galt Day

Like Simcoe Day in Toronto, our civic holiday in Guelph, called John Galt Day, is held to celebrate civic pride and honour the city's founder, a fascinating Scotsman who was an accomplished author and biographer.

Brian Holstein as Tiger Dunlop, Karen Farbridge, Mayor of Guelph and Vince Wall as John Galt

I attended the event in my roll as a SNAP newspaper photographer and caught up with many friends after my month-long road trip. It was great to see so many people having a great time despite the heat!

At one point I slipped into the River Run Centre to catch a lecture given by Prof. Gil Stelter, about John Galt's idea of establishing churches of several denominations in Guelph's early days to make it a civilized and tolerant place even though he wasn't particularly religious himself. It was a good beginning for Guelph but didn't work out for Galt: he was recalled by his shareholders and thrown in debtor's prison for giving away too much land to the churches and the poor immigrants. Quite the story!