An old-fashioned tradition was celebrated at Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur on Sept. 15, with students of all grades participating in the school’s corn shucking event. The event was a way to make the most of repetitive labour, during harvest season, when corn needed to be shucked.
The shucking event that students and teachers at Sacred Heart celebrated originates from an old pioneer game, based in francophone communities in Ontario, noted teacher Jeannette Seemann.
“You’d have so much corn to peel, that you’d end up inviting all of the community to help you out. So what they’d do is they’d pile up two big piles of corn,” said Seemann. “One of the pieces of corn in each pile had either a red string or red mark from a market inside, and the girls husk one pile, and the boys husk another."
The event created a great deal of excitement among the students who moved excitedly around in front of the school, rushing from the pile to the table where the shucked corn was placed in bowls. At the end of the shucking, Max Froese and Arayana Pine were crowned king and queen for the day.
“It’s pretty fun, because every class can do it, and everyone wants to be king and queen,” said Gabrielle Stephany, a Grade 8 student who was among many husking the piles of corn outside the school.
Seemann said that some of the most excitement came from the younger students, who quickly brought teachers plenty of corn ready for boiling at lunch.
“We only spent about 20 minutes doing the actual husking. We got some volunteers to come in and boil up the corn for us, and at lunch hour we had a picnic outside,” said Seemann, who added that there was such a demand for corn this year, that there were no leftovers by the end of lunchtime. “Students both get one or two cobs of corn, depending on how much they’re willing to eat of it. The older ones know what’s coming before lunch, so they always get really excited just before lunch.”
