This year's Gold Cup Parade stuns with 90 show-stopping entries

P.E.I.'s colourfulGold Cup Parade made its way through Charlottetown's streets, flanked with cheering Islanders on Friday.

The parade is the largestannual event in Atlantic Canada and the largest street parade east of Montreal, a news release from the city said.

Charlottetown police estimate crowds were consistent with previous years, swelling to between 50,000 and 60,000 people. The fun kicked off at 10 a.m. on Friday.

To usher in this year's parade, spectators were treated to a Royal CanadianAir Force aircraftflyby with a CP140 Aurora military aircraft.

Here are a few of the event's highlights.

The parade's theme wasVive l'Acadie. P.E.I. Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry served as one of the parade marshals alongsideactors depicting iconic Acadian literary figures Gabriel andEvangeline.

The theme aimed to celebratethe 2019 World Acadian Congressbeing hosted in Augustby P.E.I. and New Brunswick.

The Acadian Congress was expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors to the provinces with the hope of tracing their Acadian roots.

This year's parade had about 90 entries, here are some of this year's winners.

"It was a fantastic year," said Derek Tweel, one of theorganizers of the parade.

Charlottetown Mitsubishi was the recipient of the best first-time entrypresented by RBC.

The 14 Wing Greenwood Band, from Nova Scotia, was the recipient oftheaward for best band.

The winner of the best presentation of this year's parade theme was awarded to Parks Canada and was presented by McDonald's. And Whisper Wood Villa was the recipient of the judge's choice award.

The parade wrapped up at about noon just about the same time the Island was met with another major power outage the second outage in a period of 24 hours.

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