Countryfest Dauphin Strong Organizers hoping to make new memories at this year’s music festival By: Alan Small Posted: 10:36 PM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 28, 2023

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This article was published 28/06/2023 (1125 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dauphin’s Countryfest is known for its party atmosphere, drawing thousands of people to whoop it up on the Canada Day weekend while enjoying some of country music’s biggest stars.

It’s also where memories are made, whether its one of the performances or just hanging with friends at Selo Ukraina, the site just south of Dauphin that hosts Countryfest and its enthusiastic fans at its RV campgrounds.

Sad and wistful memories will still be fresh for many at the 2023 edition of Countryfest this weekend, as organizers honour the 16 Dauphinites who died in the June 15 van crash near Carberry, the latest of three deadly automobile accidents that have left the city and surrounding area reeling.

”It’s actually been weighing pretty heavily on us all here. It’s shaken up our community,” Duane McMaster, the president of Countryfest’s board of directors, says. “In the last two-and-a-half, three months we’ve had three accidents that have claimed a total of 21 lives in the region.”

On March 29, a crash involving a car and a semi-trailer truck near Gilbert Plains, about 30 kilometres west of Dauphin, led to the deaths of four teenagers, Chris Swintak, Alexandra Watt, Le Rouxan (Lenny) Niemann and Riley Robak.

In addition, a Dauphin man was killed May 16 in a motorcycle crash near the Shellmouth Dam, close to the Saskatchewan border.

“In one sense, you almost feel bad going ahead with our festival this year, given how close it is to what’s happened, but on the other hand, life does go on and we need to live our lives and remember.”–Duane McMaster

McMaster knew some of those who died in the Carberry crash — the degrees of separation in a community of 8,300 are few — and his son, who graduated from high school in Dauphin last week, was classmates with one of the teens who died in the Gilbert Plains collision.

“In one sense, you almost feel bad going ahead with our festival this year, given how close it is to what’s happened, but on the other hand, life does go on and we need to live our lives and remember,” says McMaster, who has been on the Countryfest board for nine years and runs an accounting business in Dauphin.

“One of the hardest things, from my perspective — it turns out I didn’t have anybody directly involved in that accident, but I can’t imagine all the people not knowing. It took so long to find out who was in the accident and how they were doing.”

A moment of silence will be held before Countryfest’s smaller hilltop stages open Thursday night for performances by the likes of Dauphin country singer Desiree Dorion and the Road Hammers, who are longtime Countryfest favourites, and classic rock group Honeymoon Suite.

A similar tribute will take place Friday prior to performances at Countryfest’s mainstage, which features a large wooden amphitheatre with room for 12,000 spectators.

“We have a tribute that’s going up on the (video screen). We’ll have pictures of all the people who have passed and try to honour them that way,” McMaster says.

At 2 p.m., Portage la Prairie singer-songwriter Nelson Little kicks off Friday’s mainstage show, which also has Canadian country star Tim Hicks and Alabama country-pop singer Walker Hayes performing later in the evening.

Country superstar Dierks Bentley, along with Canadian acts Tenille Townes and the James Barker Band, highlight the Saturday evening mainstage lineup, while Blue Rodeo and John Fogerty, the former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman and songwriter, headline a roots-rock-oriented Sunday-night finale.

The slogan “Dauphin Strong” has caught on since the Carberry tragedy, and Dauphin Strong stickers will be available at Countryfest, with donations sought to support the Dauphin Active Living Centre, the non-profit organization that sponsored the ill-fated bus trip on June 15.

While memories of those who are gone will linger long after Countryfest is over on Sunday night, the event will be an opportunity to make new ones — a fact that McMaster, a cancer survivor, took to heart before the recent tragedies in Dauphin.

“One of the things that was running through my head when I was thinking about all this a week or so ago: At some point, we’re all going to be gone, and all we’ll (leave) are memories,” he says.

“Go out and make some memories. Make sure your loved ones have something to remember you by when you’re gone.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall