Among items in a display of memorabilia from the early days of Scouting in Westmount was a letter written by the movement’s founder, Lord Baden-Powell, in the early years when Westmount’s Scouts were among the first groups.

Last Saturday evening, a pasta dinner was served. Before that, a number of activities typically associated with Cubs and Scouts took place, such as tying knots or turning a bowl of water and a needle into an improvised navigation device. Outside for some of the older kids, a match of capture the flag was held.

Glenn Bradley, a commissioner on Scouts Canada’s Quebec Council, addressed the crowd of more than 200. “One-hundred years in Westmount, wow, I only have one word for that — that’s totally awesome,” he said. “Scouting has been going on for 100 years down here.”

Bradley read out a letter from Premier Jean Charest, who was invited but was unable to attend. “I am extremely happy to hear that Scouting is thriving in Westmount,” wrote Charest.

Westmount-Ville Marie Liberal MP Marc Garneau, a former Scout, also spoke.

“I was a Scout in my youth and later on I also had the pleasure of being a Beaver leader,” said Garneau, who noted that in reading the biographies of American astronauts, he discovered that most of them had at one time been Scouts.

Mayor Peter Trent wore a special red neckerchief with the crest of the City of Westmount on the back. As Trent explained it, during the 1980s when the Scouts of Westmount wanted to have the Westmount crest on their neckerchiefs, the City was reluctant to comply because the crest was for the exclusive use of the municipality. In the end, the mayor of the day relented. “So this is an historical crest and it shows how much Scouts have been revered by Westmounters over these 100 years,” said Trent.