March 17, 2021

March 17th is the 76th day of 2021. There are 289 days remaining until the end of the year.

Ten new COVID19 cases Tuesday reported by Chatham-Kent Public Health.

There were 11 recoveries, leaving 70 total active cases.

For the 10th straight day, Ontario reported more than 1,000 cases. There were 1,074 positive cases.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

The Irish national holiday began as a ‘solemn religious observance’ to honor St Patrick (389-461 AD), patron saint of Ireland. It’s a public holiday in Ireland, Montserrat, and the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador.

Some facts …

• It’s been an Irish holiday for 1,500 years.
• The world’s largest St Patrick’s Parade is in NYC where over a million spectators and 100,000 participants take part (but not this year) A tradition since 1762, the 2-mile parade lasts about 6 hours.
• It was first celebrated in Canada in 1765 in Québec City.
• Since 1965, the Chicago River has been dyed green for the “Chicago St Patrick’s Parade”, an idea conceived when a plumber was observed using green dye to trace leaks from a building.
• Green is associated with St Patrick’s Day because it’s the color of Spring, Ireland, and the shamrock.
• People are being urged to celebrate the day by drinking at home alone.

Labatt Memorial Park in London is the world’s oldest baseball diamond in continuous operation.

This Summer a new behind-the-scenes public tours of the facility will be offered. The tours will get you behind the scenes of the ballpark and an opportunity to explore the field, see historic artifacts and hear about the famous teams and players to play the game in London, including Chatham’s Fergie Jenkins.

The downtown-area park was built in 1877 for the London Tecumsehs professional team. The park has captured numerous accolades over the years and is recognized by Guinness World Records for its nearly century-and-a-half run as a baseball site in its original location.

Prices for the tours have not been announced. For more info go to LabattParkTours.com.

Toronto is changing its map around to create 34 new neighbourhoods.

The new boundaries present a Toronto with 158 different neighbourhoods — up from the current total of 140, which has been in place since the late 1990s.

It’s not yet clear when the new boundaries will be formally recognized, but the city has released a map showing how large areas are being divvied up.

The area currently known as Willowdale East will be split into three new neighbourhoods called Empress, Avondale and Dunforest-Hollywood; People are already refering to it as, “Hollywood North (of Bloor.)”

In total, 16 old neighbourhoods are being replaced with 34 new ones. The rest will stay the same, as will the outer boundaries of all old neighbourhoods.

Yankee Candle just announced its 2021 Scent of the Year. It’s a candle with a tropical beach smell.

This was done to coincide with International Fragrance Day on March 21st.

The Yankee Candle 2021 Scent of the Year, Discovery, blends a complex and delicious number of fruits and spices.

As of Tuesday, Discovery is available to order at YankeeCandle.com.

Categorised in: 5 Things You Need To Know

This post was written by Chris McLeod