The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend brings the crowds of Kentville to the Centre Square for Harvest Festival and another crowd dispersed among the knolls and fields from downtown to the outskirts of its central hub.
The annual Harvest Festival is so popular that Kentville even owns the trademark for the term “Pumpkin People”; a bipedal figure made of cornstalks and painted pumpkin heads. Along with these characters this year, there were a number of sea creature sculptures constructed from various materials you would typically see around a farm town including a stingray made from an upside down wooden wheelbarrow.
For the first year ever, Kentville Business Community partnered with Apple Valley Foods to bring a pie eating contest in which contestants held their hands behind their backs and had to finish a pie the fastest with only their faces. Along with 12 pies donated to the contest, Apple Valley Foods donated 15 pies to surrounding organizations and food kitchens.
Surrounding this contest was live music, a rock climbing wall, a vendors market, a play area for families as well as a pumpkin carving station where volunteers handed out pumpkins for festival-goers to carve with tools provided that were sprawled among a series of folding tables.
If you missed out on the festivities, don’t worry, you can see the Pumpkin People in Kentville, Nova Scotia for the entire month of October.