When Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced the 135 new inductees to the Order of Canada yesterday, Thorold's very own 'Heritage Hero' Pamela Minns was one of them.
“It’s overwhelming and unexpected,” said Pamela Minns in a reaction to ThoroldToday.
Minns worked as a city committee volunteer for 30 years in an effort to preserve Thorold's rich heritage.
“We were involved in attempting to bring awareness to the city of Thorold and the heritage that was here," said Minns.
"It was at a time when Thorold was pulled away from all the industrial areas that they had, they had a lot of paper mills. And they moved from this industrial vision that everyone had for Thorold and they became involved in local tourism.”
Minns says there were three things that made Thorold an attractive tourism spot.
“They had the Welland Canal, they had cycling and they had a great deal of heritage. I sat on the tourism committee and those were the three things that were promoted for the City of Thorold.”
And through Minns’ hard work, Thorold was put on the map as a heritage destination.
“We worked very hard to do that and I think we accomplished a lot in that area. One of the things that came out of it was an awareness of the people in Thorold of the fact that Thorold has a lot of history and heritage within its boundaries. We have over 50 sites in Thorold which are recognized by the Ontario heritage act. That’s what we worked on and I think we were successful.”
