This Tiny Town Had A Women's March That Will Warm Your Black Heart

Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia made its voice heard

With so many of us still coming down from the highs that came from being among the millions of women who marched across the world on Saturday, we know exactly how powerful women are when they band together. But what about when they don’t have hundreds or thousands of sisters by their sides? They’re just as powerful, and the photos from a Women’s March in Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia prove it.

The tiny Canadian fishing village is home to just 65 year-round residents, and while cities around the world were filled with millions of women marching to protest Donald Trump’s presidency, Sandy Cove had its own, miniature version.

The idea came from 63-year-old Gwen Quigley Wilson, a retired teacher. Wilson didn’t want to make the two-and-a-half hour drive to the women’s march in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so she and her friend Melissa decided to organize their own. They set up a Facebook event page and figured it would be the two of them and maybe another person or two, marching down the highway that runs through Sandy Cove.

They were wrong.

Thirteen people — nearly a quarter of Sandy Cove’s population — ended up joining Wilson and her friend, armed with signs and ready to march. All in all, they had 13 women and two men participating, including Wilson’s husband, Gary.

“You just felt like okay, this a big moment in history and you don’t want to just sit passively by and observe it. We want to do something,” Wilson said in an interview with Buzzfeed Canada. “To be honest, we didn’t really think there’d be anybody except Melissa and myself and maybe one or two other people. And then people just started arriving. It was joyful to see people rolling in.”

She continued, “We did our walk and rattled our noisemakers and waved our signs at the passing cars and just enjoyed each other’s company. It was very exhilarating just to be out walking.”

While Sandy Cove’s march was tiny compared to the marches in big cities that drew hundreds of thousands of people, photos and videos marchers posted online have gone viral. One video of the Sandy Cove march is fast approaching 200,000 views.

“It’s overwhelming,” Wilson said about all the attention now focused on her tiny town. “It just makes you realize that you’re not isolated, you’re not alone, there’s a whole world out there standing with you.”