Photo courtesy of Saskatoon RiverFest Facebook page
A three-day river festival celebrating Canadian Heritage Rivers will take place in Saskatoon starting today.
The Saskatoon River Rendezvous 150 Festival celebrates the heritage of the river as a highway for voyageurs, as well as a source for pelts and furs for First Nations people.
The festival will include voyageur canoe races, recreational canoeing and short river tours. Victoria Park will be the site for river-related exhibits and displays, musical and dance entertainment, storytelling and river heritage walking tours.
Cliff Speer with the local organizing committee says the event is part of Canada 150 celebrations to commemorate heritage rivers in Canada. The South Saskatchewan is one of three such rivers in the province along with the Saskatchewan River and the Churchill River. He says the river played a big part of how the fur trade helped open up the west.
“Rivers were like highways and they were important to the economics of the time, and there is a lot of heritage associated with that time in history,” he says. “That’s what we are celebrating here.”
He says the highlight of Thursday will be the arrival of canoeists travelling the same route as the voyageurs did in the 1800’s. A group of five teams started on a trek from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta and will make their way to The Pas, Manitoba using similar canoes that voyageurs used during the fur trade.
Speer says there is a difference between these boats and the birchbark canoes used by First Nations people.
“They were called north canoes and were 26 footers,” he says. “These larger canoes were able to move furs and freight across the country, down to the Great Lakes and on to Montreal.”
There will also be river-themed movies and art exhibitions will showcase the heritage and value of the South Saskatchewan River throughout the festival at various city locations.
Speer says on Saturday, there will be fully outfitted interpretive canoe tours along the river trails of 1885 with the destination at Batoche. He says there is a lot for outdoor enthusiasts and history buffs to take in during the three-day event.
Today’s event kicks off at 4:00 p.m.