MANITOWANING—For around 55 years Delmer and Leslie Fields have hosted the annual Assiginack Public Library Annual Easter Egg Hunt that attracts hundreds of scampering children who eagerly gather up the gaily coloured plastic eggs bearing goodies inside. But the widely anticipated event has been going on for much longer than that.
“It was started by Mrs. Mastin,” said Mr. Fields. “I remember we were four or five years old, in them days we had it down by the lighthouse. That was because they owned the creamery near there.”
Like many parents, the date the Fields took on the task of hosting the event is measured in children. “I guess we started while (son) Bill was just a year old. He’s 55 now.” Mr. Fields himself is now 80.
photos by Michael Erskine
When the tradition started, the egg hunt was truly an egg hunt.
“In those days we used real hard-boiled eggs,” he recalled. “We hid them up here and then they were taken home they would use them for sandwiches. But then, after a while, you couldn’t do that.”
“All of a sudden, you can’t eat a boiled egg if it’s been boiled for over a day,” he laughed. “We used to take them in our lunch pail. They would have cracks in them. Nobody cared and nobody got sick.”
For a while the event took place in front of the yard by the Mastin’s home. “Just on the side street, and we had it there for a number of years, at Mastin’s.”
In those early days, people in the community would bring their eggs into the school, and the children would decorate them before they were taken out to the field by volunteers.
These days, the event is hosted by the Assiginack Public Library and retired librarian Debbie Robinson has valiantly shepherded the egg hunt for 39 years and counting. The children listened to her instructions with barely contained excitement—and like a pied piper of old, they followed her out into the field in a neat and orderly manner.
The world may have changed, but the event went on thanks to the efforts of community volunteers like Ms. Robinson and her helpers and made possible by the generosity of hosts like Delmer and Leslie Fields—true icons of Manitoulin community service.
