Thousands of people gathered at Sarnia's Bayshore Park Tuesday to celebrate hometown hero Col. Chris Hadfield.
The first Canadian to walk in space was honoured with the unveiling of a Hometown Star from Canada’s Walk of Fame.
Hadfield arrived at the ceremony with a marching pipe band, and then sang alongside fellow 2018 Walk of Fame inductee Andy Kim, fellow Sarnia native Emm Gryner and Canadian musical trio The Arrogant Worms, a personal favourite of Hadfield's.
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The Sarnia spaceman, who turns 60 later this month, said it was great to be home to celebrate the honour.
"When you travel a long, long way and you're far from home, there is a special feeling to coming back to the comfort of home and to share dreams with people. So to be able to come back to Sarnia, but also to be part of the national celebration that is Canada's Walk of Fame, it's just a delight -- it's like letting people in a little bit on the incredible magic that I've been lucky enough to be part of," he said.
Hadfield, who was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame last year in Toronto, said he hopes the Hometown Star will inspire Sarnians for generations to come, including those at his former elementary school.
"To be able to put the star on the wall at King George VI Public School so that every kid every year from now on, as they come into the school just as I did, can see maybe the kind of ideas I had when I was their age -- this is something that's possible, this is something that maybe they could do," he said. "My goal was to do something that really pushed me to the limit that was just barely possible -- try and do something that maybe no Canadian had ever done before, definitely something that I had never done before. But to now have someone else say 'that makes you famous, that's worth honouring with a star,' it's just a wonderful delight."
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As part of the celebration, the Canadian Walk of Fame donated $10,000 in Hadfield's name to the Mike Weir Foundation to help build a youth mental health facility in Sarnia-Lambton. Hadfield said he's glad to be apart of Mike and brother Jim Weir's cause.
"They are matching donations to build a facility to help young Sarnians who are having difficulties. So to me, it was just the nice, logical thing to do -- take that donation from Canada's Walk of Fame, have Mike and Jim Weir double it so that it really has an impact and is part of contributing to the productiveness and the lives of Sarnia peoples."
Hadfield was joined by his parents Roger and Edna, his wife Helene and some of his children for the ceremony.
He said many people, including himself, wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for family.
"We are all incredibly lucky recipients of a vast amount of work, a lot of it from our own families. I am extremely aware of those things, and so it's nice to be able to share events like this, not only with everybody in Sarnia, but really specifically with the people that have contributed so much to allow me to do it," said Hadfield.
Following the ceremony, Hadfield said he'll be keeping busy in the future.
"I ask myself all the time what do you do with the magnificence of your own experience? If you've walked in space twice, if you've commanded a spaceship, how do you share that experience? So I'm writing a fourth book, I teach at the University of Waterloo, I work with young companies, I run a little space company, I speak at schools all the time, I play music with as many people as I can -- I think the richness of life is something to be shared," he said.
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