Truro named Nova Scotia's most active community

A Nova Scotia town has just been named the most active community in the province.

After taking part in the ParticipACTION Community Challenge throughout the month of June, Truro came out on top as the most active community in Nova Scotia for 2024.

Ashley Simms, recreation and culture director for Truro Parks, said the town hosted multiple events to get people's blood flowing.

"Basically, it's just encouraged people to try for physical activity, get out, get active, and that's exactly what our community did," Simms said in an interview with CTV Atlantic's Ana Almeida on Wednesday.

"It's just been amazing to see how many people got involved and [we] really embraced it."

Participation throughout the town was high, too, with thousands of people taking part in the challenge.

"We had over 3,000 people participate," Simms said.

Simms said multiple events were held by the town to keep people moving, including opens swims, a bike week celebration in June, scavenger hunts, and field days at local schools.

She adds one of the hardest parts of the challenge was keeping track of the number of people participating.

"We reached out to a number of groups and asked them to track their numbers," said Simms.

"We are lucky enough, this was our second time winning this award so people knew about it, and we were able to reach out to our contacts and post programs where we were able to track numbers ourselves."

The competition is country-wide, with communities all across Canada hoping to snag the top spot, as well as the $100,000 grand prize for the winning town. This year's winner was Hay River in Northwest Territories.

One community was chosen from each province and territory as their most active community, and each was given a prize.

Truro came on top for Nova Scotia, winning $15,000. Salisbury won for New Brunswick, and Three Rivers won for Prince Edward Island.

Simms said the town already has plans for the prize money.

"We're going to construct a new baseball field, so the money's going to go towards that," she said.

She also added the competition is great for the community, but they won't be giving up the top spot easily next year.

"We definitely want to be the defending champs," Simms laughed.

"It's a great program, we just want to see everybody active. There's so many benefits for people being active, and we encourage people to start tracking because it makes you accountable for your physical activity. And it's a lot of fun, it brings people together, people learn from each other, there's just so many benefits, so we encourage everybody to get involved."

For more Nova Scotia news visit our dedicated provincial page.