Former local holds Olympic Flame during cross Canada relay

By Greg Bennett

The Coast Guard

NovaNewsNow.com

As Nova Scotia welcomed the Olympic Torch last week, it had already been through the hands of former Shelburne resident, Janna MacLachlan who ran a leg of the Relay in Iqaluit.

MacLachlan, who was born and grew up in Shelburne, graduating from SRHS in 1999, said she was excited to have the opportunity to take part in the cross-Canada relay, which she did on Nov. 9 (Day 11) in Iqaluit, NU.

She is an Occupational Therapist for the Baffin Region and has been living and working there for the last three years.

MacLachlan is active in the community, volunteering as a figure skating coach and answering the Help Line phone.

She has also taken a basic level course in the Inuktitut language and has learned traditional sewing, making her own parka and kamiks and a pair of seal skin slippers as a Christmas present for her father last year.

The torch was taken through its closest approach to Shelburne County with a visit to Yarmouth, Bear River and Annapolis on Thursday, before heading back to Halifax and then to PEI and later this week to New Brunswick.

According to the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay website approximately 90 per cent of Canada’s population will be within a one-hour drive of experiencing the Olympic Flame. The relay will be over 100 days and be held in over 1,000 communities and places of interest where torchbearers will carry the Olympic Flame.

The extensive tour of the North included a visit to Alert, Nunavut, the northernmost permanently inhabited community in the world.

MacLachlan was one of 12,000 people to have the honour of being an Olympic Torchbearer

The 2010 Olympic Torch Relay will begin in Canada on Oct. 30, and conclude at the Opening Ceremony signaling the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games on February 12, 2010.