Celebrate Canada Day next year with the opening of a new landmark: a museum dedicated to Stompin’ Tom Connors in Skinners Pond, Prince Edward Island.
Plans have been put in motion to transform the province’s oldest known school into the Stompin’ Tom Centre and Schoolhouse, which is slated to be completed and open by July 1, 2017. While the “Hockey Song” singer was born in Saint John, N.B. in 1936, he was adopted by a family in Skinners Pond at the age of eight and spent part of his childhood at said school. In the ‘70s, Connors purchased the schoolhouse and displayed his memorabilia to the public there. The site later closed, but before his death in 2013, he approved of plans to reopen the centre.
“He learned his love of Canada here and that is likely where he got his desire to find out more about the country,” Anne Arsenault, general manager of development group Tignish Initiatives, told the Canadian Press. “He thoroughly enjoyed this area. He loved it and talked very highly about it.”
Last year, a statue of Connors was unveiled in Sudbury to commemorate one of his best known songs, “Sudbury Saturday Night.”
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