Trappers Festival

On February 14th - 19th, The Pas held its annual Trappers Festival. Shona (Jo's sister) came up for a visit and we all enjoyed all the different events and competitions: Tea boiling, bannock making, chainsaw wood carving, leg wrestling, dog sled racing, and flourpack carrying which was not for the faint of heart (the winner carried 950lbs on his back!).  Some photos below!

The beginning of the bannock making and frying.
This gentleman is making some kindling for his fire.

Bannock fryling. This one looked particularly delicious.
I like the guy in the back too, taking it all in. He looks like he has a good centre of gravity going on.

Jo doing her best impression of the guy in the background. I think her mustache needs a bit of work.
Quite a few characters like this walking around the festival.

Three gentleman were doing chainsaw wood carving, they had 5 hours I think. I'm pretty sure this guy won, it was impressive.

We went on a Bombadier (pronounced Bomb-ba-deer up here) ride, these old 1950s/60s vehicles used to transport things up in the north.

We rode in the on the right, which broke down multiple times on our 7 minute ride. The other yellow one was in much better shape, but it was quite a lot of fun.

This man was our driver, and looked to have been driving these things since the 50s. He had a really good face and attitude.

Here's Shona meeting a local man who was proudly walking his dogs around town during the festival.

Here's Shona and Tony's eyes. Standing around waiting for the sled dog races to begin, it was pretty cold.
The wind on the river wasn't tropical, to say the least.

Jo had the privilege of shooting one of the guns to start one of the sled dog races. She represented the University and did admirably.

Most of the dogs racing were skinny little greyhound crosses. They are raced for speed not for practicality.  They looked pretty cold and we felt bad for them.

Here's a video of Jo with a gun. And the dog races:

We rented some cross-country skis and from outside our door, we followed the groomed ski path. It was beautiful.

 

Classic shadow puppetry! These were done with only our hands!

Shona gets creative and reminds everyone where we are.

We drove out to Clearwater Lake and had a look around. This is said lake.

  

Shona at the end of the world! (Not really, just kidding.)

We went to the OCN Blizzard hockey game, I don't think they won, but we had a good time.
Don't be misled by Jo's facial expression. 

We drove to the river at sunset and Jo (ok, Tony) got the car stuck on the little road heading down to the river. She (he) had seen someone the day before drive onto the river so thought it would be possible.
After 15 minutes of trying to get it back to the road, Shona was able to use her stealth driving skills to return the car to its proper driving surface. Hurray for Sho!

Ice shacks at sunset.

Joanna and Shona take in the sunset on the Saskatchewan River.