Expo 67 Nostalgia

Wow, I have just begun to go through the collection of souvenirs and memorabilia from Expo 67. That would be the World's Fair from 1967, which was held in Montreal, Canada - my hometown. I found out some totally neat factoids from Wikipedia ((((wikipedia)))) about it, of which I'm inordinately proud:

• It was considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with over 50 million visitors and 62 nations participating.
  
• It also set the single-day attendance record for a world's fair with 569,000 visitors on its third day.
• Expo 67 was Canada's main celebration during its centennial year.
  
• The fair was originally intended to be held in Moscow, to help the Soviet Union celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution but, for various reasons, the Soviets decided to cancel, and Canada was awarded it in the fall of 1962.

Since our family lived in Montreal North, we made several excursions to the fair over the course of the summer. It felt like all our relatives came to see us that year (probably just the ones with cameras, because we have loads of photographs from that year). I was very young - I turned 5 years old at the end of the summer - yet I retain many vivid memories of the sights and smells; the crowds, the fantastic architecture and cultural exposure of those months. From Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome of the United States pavilion to the austere, sail-like roof of the Germany pavilion; to the stoic concrete pillar of the Great Britain pavilion, to the exotic tent structure of the Ethiopia pavilion - these and so much more made huge impressions on my very young mind.

I do recall that my oldest brother Stephen performed with the Montreal Youth Symphony, dapper in his red and white striped jacket and towering over the other teenagers with his bass cello.

I remember the great logos of that year - the stylized maple leaf commemorating Canada's centennial - the signing of the nation into confederacy. The theme of the fair was "Man And His World" - and the accompanying logo was a circle of stick-figure people with arms outstretched towards each other - that's the image in the photograph of the lighter.

Even music played its role that summer:

• The song that most Canadians associate with Expo was written by Bobby Gimby, a veteran commercial jingle writer who composed the popular Centennial tune "Ca-na-da", which went on to sell over 500,000 copies. Gimby earned the name the "Pied Piper of Canada".
  

A few years after Expo 67, Bobby Gimby was still doing his schtick as the Pied Piper of Canada. I was one of the rats (um I mean, amongst a group of children) he led through a downtown building concourse, singing the Ca-na-da Song while he led us with his jeweled cape and oversized horn.

So, I'm having a lot of fun in going through the bits and pieces that have found their way into my hands over the years. As I get the items photographed and put into the eCrater store, I'll continue to throw up some links here for come of the totally cool stuff.