Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Festival du Voyageur receives $700,000 grant from Ottawa
The 41st edition of the winter celebration of francophone and Métis cultures gets underway on Friday, and the organization will be holding events all summer marking the bicentennial of Fort Gibraltar.
On Friday, the federal government announced $700,000 in mainly new funding for the organization, more than half of which will be used to promote Festival du Voyageur in the northern U.S. states and rural Manitoba.
About 25 per cent of those who attend the annual event come from out of town.
"I've been attending this festival since I was a very little girl and I will continue to volunteer because this is absolutely my favourite time of year," St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover said as she announced the funding Friday at Fort Gibraltar. She said the $700,000 is "the highest level of funding ever provided to the Festival du Voyageur by any level of government since its inception."
Josée Vaillancourt, executive director of Festival du Voyageur, said the organization will use a federal $380,000-tourism grant to market the festival at events and trade shows.
A few weeks ago, festival officials took a band of musicians to the St. Paul Winter Carnival and gave Minnesotans a taste of the Winnipeg event.
"We went down there, created a show. We served some maple taffy on snow and little maple candies and we promoted festival," Vaillancourt said, adding the promotion was well-received. The festival hopes to do more of that with some of the money it received Friday.
It also received additional federal funds to host special events surrounding the 200th anniversary of Fort Gibraltar this year.
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
FESTIVAL DU VOYAGEUR EVENTS
Feb. 12-21: 41st annual festival. Attendance last year was 105,000. Organizers are shooting for a five per cent increase this year.
May through August: Bicentennial celebrations of Fort Gibraltar (1810-2010) will include the historical interpretive program as well as special events throughout the summer.
June-July (date to be announced): There will be an outdoor theatrical spectacle at Fort Gibraltar that will tell the 200-year story of the francophone and Métis people in Manitoba.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 6, 2010 A13
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