Perhaps it’s relief that the deep freeze weather has relented or more likely, that we were just so happy to see Ann Ross and Doug McGregor hosting Local Roots again, but we are feeling a bit more hopeful these days. Not that in the grand scheme things are all that rosy, with the new version of omicron, BA.2, showing up in our province and a potential war beginning in Ukraine and affecting the rest of Europe, but we are feeling a sense of joy that things are really shaping up for an arts and culture-filled summer with many in-person events.
The Northern Juried Art Show will be back, in the Flin Flon Community Hall, at the beginning of June. This will be the 45th edition of the show, which brings together artists and their art from all over the north to see and celebrate their own work and the creativity of others. There are several regional juried art shows held in Manitoba every year because we are such a large geographical area and the artworks judged most promising usually go on to the Rural and Northern Juried Art Show in Winnipeg. The NJAS also includes Creighton and Denare Beach, Sask. artists. It has not been possible to have an in-person show over the last two years, but artists and organizers learned a lot about video and photographic reproduction, so look out for more than just an art exhibition when this iteration happens.
The Flin Flon Trout Festival committee also has some major plans for the traditional cultural celebration at the end of June. Trout Festival is another long-standing event in our community that was severely curtailed during the pandemic. The small group of planners were essentially restricted to supporting a parade July 1 and a fishing derby which, by its nature, is a socially distant activity. This year, however, we can look forward to early evening busker-style concerts on Main Street, the first annual Ross Lake regatta, a disc golf tournament and an afternoon event, especially for seniors, in Rotary Park. With the usual Fish Fry extravaganza, fishing derby and parade added in, it sounds like quite a week.
Flin Flon’s Blueberry Jam Music Gathering is also planning to return to the Flin Flon Campground sites in early August and that is another event that promises to be bigger and better than ever in 2022. They have not started to line up musicians as yet, but that has not been a problem in the past, with many more people wanting to play than there is actually time to see them. The hope of this planning group is that there will be an additional stage area in the vicinity of the Flin Flon Station Museum in 2022, to give patrons even more choice and opportunities to see favourites or experience new musical sounds. This completely eclectic music festival will remain free to the viewing public in 2022. The real question remains though - how many Porta-Potties is too many? It will certainly be a great show so we fervently hope for good weather.
To end off the summer, there will be Culture Days, which peaked in popularity in Flin Flon and area just before COVID-19 and the change in format from a weekend event to a month-long celebration. No word yet on what the 2022 version will bring, as cultural coordinator Crystal Kolt has not yet begun the planning process, but our hope is that no matter what new and extraordinary events fill the mind of that fearless cultural leader, we will continue to have Pictures at an Exhibition in collaboration with the NorVA artist of the month. Even during the pandemic, that particular event bore spectacular fruit. Megan Krause from Winnipeg was the visual artist last year and she attended the opening in Flin Flon with her husband and two young children in tow. Husband Jesse is a phenomenal musician in his own right and following Culture Days, Mark Kolt contracted him to work on a multi-dimensional performance piece that incorporated song, dance and drama. That collaboration gave us Ships, the best original work to come out of Flin Flon in many years - and as our first exchange student, Mitsuru, used to say, “That’s no hyperbole!”
Forgive if you will a small personal moment while we say “Happy Birthday Greyson!” He is five years old today.
