It's the time bordertown residents have been waiting for. As of April 1, fully vaccinated travellers will no longer need to provide a negative pre-entry COVID-19 test result to enter Canada by air, land or water. Travellers can still be subjected to mandatory random PCR testing, but they won't need to isolate while awaiting their results. Unvaccinated and partially-vaccinated travellers, however, will still need to follow isolation and testing requirements, and all travellers must continue to use the Arrive-Can app before crossing back into Canada. Daytrips to our sister community of Washington County, Maine are about to get a lot easier for Charlotte County residents. It's worth noting that travellers don't need a negative COVID-19 test to cross into the United States by land.

After having to cancel Paddlefest in 2020 due to the pandemic only to have a scaled back version of the music and outdoor festival last year, Paddlefest creative director Luke MacDonald is happy to be welcoming musicians, nature lovers and concert goers back to St. Andrews this May long weekend for a full-scale Paddlefest of pre-pandemic proportions. 

"We are treating it like a reunion," said Macdonald. 

Passes to the festival, which takes place May 19 to 22, are now available for sale at paddlefestnb.ca. Individual concert and event tickets will be available for purchase in the weeks ahead. MacDonald says concert enthusiasts can expect to hear more announcements of musical acts and festival events next month.

Finally, the Wesley United Church in St. Andrews held a fundraiser on Saturday for Ukraine. Minister Natasha Pearen and her family held two sold-out Ukrainian egg painting workshops.

It takes about 2 to 3 hours to create a Ukrainian egg using the traditional process of drawing on the eggs with wax with a tool called a Kistka and layering colours of dyes. If you missed the workshop but still want to give, the Wesley United church is continuing to collect donations for Ukraine.