FestivalSeeker Stories

So everyone thought Kevin Costner was crazy, plowing over his cornfield to build a baseball park. Sharing that “build it and they will come spirit,” runs deep in the Cariboo Chilcotin.

It wasn’t a typical Sunday morning.

Festival season is here and that means road trip!

Dust, horses and the faint smell of fresh manure bring me back to childhood in rural Alberta.

We all know there’s no such thing as an overnight success. Mother Nature took millions of years to do her spectacular work on shaping the Kootenay/Columbia Valley region of British Columbia.

Like most forms of art, chalking can be very messy. The pastel colours get on your hands, on your clothes, on your face and in your hair.

I rolled into Horsefly, B.C. on a sunny Sunday afternoon, passing the General Store and parking at the Community Hall, after about 50 minutes on the road from Williams Lake.

I steadied myself, held my breath and unholstered my camera. Moments later, a dozen horses thundered past.

This is a tale of two types of horsepower: My four-legged horse, General, and Phil Pogue’s 1937 Dodge Rumble Seat Coupe – with the power of about 245 horses – in 100 Mile House, BC.

There aren’t many places where you can watch the sun set over the Rockies while you’re sitting on a midway ride. But you can in Cochrane, during the annual Cochrane Fair.

In the 1860s and 1870s, Barkerville in B.C.’s Cariboo was the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco.

What makes a summer festival for you? Star-studded musical lineups that you have to line up for, or something a little more low-key and casual?

You can call it the Harbour City, a historic coal town, home of the iconic Bastion and Diana Krall, birthplace of the bathtub race, and originator of one of the world’s most popular and beloved, de

Mind. Blown. Did you know that in the middle of the Pacific Northwest there’s a 50-kilometre long island with the only paved runway in the Gulf Islands?

I doubt there will be many times in our life that we can shout, “Happy Sesquicentennial!” so we better practice saying it without stumbling over our lips. Happy Ses - qui – cen – tennial. Easy.