King and Queen Trapper competition highlights many events on final weekend of Winter Festival

“That’s usually what I do every year when I go hunting and stuff, so it comes naturally to me for moose and wolves and stuff like that,” he said. “I believe that that’s the loudest and a lot of people hear wolves right, so I understand it any better than any other call.”

Animal calls are just one of many aspects of the King and Queen Trapper Competition. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

McKenzie explained he used to compete in Trapper events a lot when he was younger. Work kept him away from the competitions for a while but he is trying to get to more of them so he can compete again with his friends.

McKenzie from Cumberland House said he’s been competing in Trapper events for over 20 years and he hopes people watching the event know what Trappers go through.

“The tradition and what the people like Trappers have to go through and that’s what they used to do back in the day right, they used to combine at the end of the season and compete,” McKenzie said. “Who was the best moose caller, who could cut the wood fastest, set traps so that’s how it all started.”

A timed competition where participants must move bags of dog food across a certain distance in good time. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

Joan Carriere, organizer of the event and daughter-in-law to Franklin Carriere who competed in the event for many years, said she organizes the event because the last year Franklin competed the participants ran it themselves.

“I thought you know what I’ve sat here and I’ve watched this event for 30 years I kind of know what I’m doing so I thought why not they need help some where and volunteers are so important,” Carriere said.

Last year she said she was the pioneer in introducing the queen trapper events because visiting northern community trapper competitions they all had queen trapper competitions.

She said in the two-day competition at the Alfred Jenkins Field House there are 16 events for the men and 14 for the women. If a competitor finishes in the top 5 of each competition, they receive a certain amount of points depending on what place they finish. At the end of the competition on Sunday they will count the total points received by each participant and will announce the King and Queen trapper competition winners.

Not everyone competes in every event in the competition, but participants must be registered in at least seven.

“Originally all these events are from a way of life at one time,” she said. “This is you know the trapper on the trapline people living off the land and at some point they just made a competition out of it but something I’m happy to see is from the 32 years I’ve been watching it the younger people are coming up now.”

Participants competed to see who could throw a log the farthest. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

She added it’s nice to see the tradition being carried on by the competitors from their parents or grandparents. Carriere said the weather has been an important aspect of this weekends festivities as it has brought more people out to witness the competition.

The competition continues into tomorrow on Sunday at the Alfred Jenkins Field House where they will announce the queen and king trappers for this years Prince Albert Winter Festival.

Arm Wrestling Mania

Arm wrestling returned to the Prince Albert Winter Festival on Saturday.

The tournament style competition was divided into different weight classes for children, women and men categories.

Michael Cariman and Mason Purves competed in the 60-kilogram weight class of the competition against each other but are also good friends.

“We’re good buddies we go to school together and we’ve been doing it not competitively but like at home and when we’re going out and stuff and we thought we’d take our skill to the table,” Cariman said.

The duo did well in their weight class with Cariman finishing first and Purves following behind in second place.

Many ages competed in the Arm Wrestling Competition including a lot of youth. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

Clayton Turcotte, vice president of the Saskatchewan Arm Wrestling Association said he came down to P.A. to organize the event and referee it as well.

“This is our third year in a row that we’ve came to the winter festival we’ve been here years ago, and they asked us to come back,” Turcotte said.

In the children portion of the tournament they had five weight classes, one class for women’s and three different weight classes for the men.

Turcotte explained to win in arm wrestling it is a combination of both strength and technique.

“Technique is the biggest one, I’ve seen a lot of smaller guys going up against bigger guys who look a lot stronger, but their technique is actually going to overcome the strength of the stronger guy,” he said.

The Alfred Jenkins Field House was packed for the Arm Wrestling Competition on Saturday. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

He said every year they come to the P.A. Winter Festival their event keeps growing.

“Even the fans watching, today this placed is packed everybody’s loud everybody’s enjoying it,” he said. “Watching it get bigger it actually gets me excited, being up here refereeing watching new people even some of the vets going up against each other.”

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Ian.gustafson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @iangustafson12

by Ian Gustafson

King and Queen Trapper competition highlights many events on final weekend of Winter Festival

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