The PA EX … More Than a Midway

It’s fair time!

Confession. I love the fair. I love everything about our summers of Saskatchewan exhibitions with various agricultural associations around the province working hard to provide a great show for a wide variety of people and interest groups.

As a younger person, my focus was the midway. I have always loved the midway at night: meeting friends to go have the bejesus scared out of me amidst the sparkling lights, rockin’ music, smell of popcorn, fried foods and candy floss mixed with a slight hint of barn. I have even enjoyed the Carnie’s and their various sales pitches.

But in more recent years I have come to truly enjoy the exhibition hall.

Though in decline, I love to go see the sheaves of grain – a tribute to our pioneering past, the home canning, the pies and bread, the vegetables and flowers. The artwork and time-honored crafts of our local people always brings me a tremendous sense of joy.

Court proceedings

'The impact of this trauma will echo for generations': court case surrounding La Ronge woman's death reaches conclusion

11h ago

Going Global

P.A.'s Zablocki named to Team Canada for U18 Women's World Championships

12h ago

Election 2024

Birch Hills staff won't share election decision

12h ago

Perhaps I am a little old fashioned, or maybe it’s because I am a mom now – but I find myself looking to the past ways of doing things and worry that many aspects of our prairie life that have been special, could be lost. It is the agricultural exhibitions which still encourage the tactile aspects of our culture and help preserve the valuable aspects of our past.

When I was a younger girl in Tisdale, I was a 4Her. We took our horses to a number of local fairs in the summer. Some of these villages still preserve this tradition. I just heard that Connaught Agricultural Society is still holding its fair way out of the way north east of Tisdale. That news is a great relief to me.

Connaught and even larger centres like Prince Albert have, year after year after year, printed the Exhibition Prize Book in early spring and people would get these books and start planning. For my great aunt Ruth Meyers, and numerous farm women like her, it was an opportunity to shine – to take the day to day pie making or bread making, jamming or canning – out of the ordinary and put her skills up against her peers from her community. This was serious business and Red, Blue and White ribbons were cherished possessions which would hang on the walls of farm kitchens and offices for many years.

The men of the farm also had something to prove and would submit their best grain samples in canning jars or sheaves. My grandfather was a registered seed grower in Kinistino and we still have many of the tags and ribbons he kept from the fairs.

The 4H kids, whether it was craft, horse or beef – would culminate their year at the local fairs and not only show their skills with their final projects but have on display a record book, a work of art in itself.

The gardeners and the crafters would put on display their finest quilting, knitting, lace making … carrots, beets, potatoes, gladiolas, daisy’s and lily’s.

The exhibition halls no longer have the bounty of entries that once were … but thank goodness the opportunity still exists for people to show off what they can do and encourage the next generation.

We live in an interesting time, I think. We are surrounded by fascinating technology. I love that. I have a phone that can do everything but wash the dishes. At the same time, we are so overwhelmed by advances in technology that many are wanting to look back and reclaim what is nearly lost.

Organic farming and gardening is making a comeback. People are raising their own honey and planting gardens in increasing numbers. I am on this bandwagon myself. I have a large garden in Kinistino and it is very successful thanks to the advice of our seniors who pass by and tell me to put ashes with the onions and lawn clippings between the rows – who agree with me that a few earthworms are great but MANY earthworms are a catastrophy. People are quilting and knitting and wondering about making lace.

We still have this information – thanks in part to groups like the agricultural societies of the province, of which the Prince Albert Exhibition is a large part, which have encouraged these traditions and helped preserve this knowledge.

Remember the PA EX is more than the rides and the food and the trade shows. Make sure to go and see the exhibition hall, and encourage the young farmers competing in the beef and horse shows.

We are in the city – but a city in an agricultural province. To experience the fullness of the fair is a real reward.

Have a great week at the fair.

And next spring, get your own copy of the PA EX prize book and think about making the best loaf of bread, taking the best picture or growing the best lily anyone has ever seen – and put it to the test … at the PA EX.