Folk fest regulars don’t need 150 reasons to party
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/07/2017 (3028 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Every year, on the second weekend of July, thousands of Winnipeggers return to Birds Hill Park. And if you ask them, they’ll say they are coming home.
The Winnipeg Folk Festival, now in its 44th year, has carved a special place in the hearts of many Manitobans and those from farther afield who make the trip every year. It’s a place where one can reunite with old friends and dance under a Prairie sunset to an excellent live-music soundtrack. It’s a harbinger of summer; many folks plan their holidays around it. It’s a point of pride for those who can say they haven’t missed a single folk fest and a bragging point for those trying to sell our city to a skeptical out-of-towner. The Winnipeg Folk Festival isn’t just a music festival. It’s an institution.
It began as an idea, a that’ll-never-fly pitch from Mitch Podolak and Colin Gorrie to celebrate Winnipeg’s 100th birthday back in 1974. And while a lot of this year’s cultural programming has been tied to another big birthday, this year’s folk fest is not taking part in Canada 150 celebrations.

“We decided to not be part of the Canada 150, decidedly, for a bunch of different reasons… most of us don’t agree with the Canada 150 in the way it is coming to be and not only that, we have a lot of Indigenous partners and it’s just too political,” Winnipeg Folk Festival artistic director Chris Frayer told the Free Press this week.
That stance might raise some eyebrows — given a list of funders that includes federal and provincial governments, the Winnipeg Foundation, the Winnipeg Arts Council and Heritage Canada — but it’s a justifiable position and one we should expect from a folk festival.
That the organization is separating pride in Canadian artists from rah-rah patriotism should not come as a surprise.
Besides, the folk fest doesn’t need an artificial mandate supplied by a splashy Canada 150 branding campaign; it already consistently supports and elevates Canadian music and it does so organically, with genuine enthusiasm and an eye toward diversity. The organization also presents concerts and events in the city throughout the year, contributing to both a viable local music industry and the province’s economic growth.
But while Mr. Frayer might view the decision to opt out of Canada 150 as apolitical, it is political. And why shouldn’t it be? Folk festivals, by their nature, are inherently so. They are spaces in which social-justice issues are highlighted and protest songs are sung by thousands of people — sometimes at odds with the event’s corporate sponsorship. Few who were there will forget the 2008 Winnipeg Folk Festival, when Vancouver singer/songwriter Geoff Berner skewered sponsor Volkswagen from the mainstage.
While folk festivals are about music and politics, they are — first and foremost — about people. Some 2,800 volunteers transform the site into a humming, vibrant, temporary community. And while it’s not immune to either criticism or competition, the Winnipeg Folk Festival is practically unassailable thanks in large part to the cult-like devotion people have to it. In that way, it is the Radiohead or Beyoncé of local music festivals. People are protective of the festival because it’s theirs.
And they will celebrate this year’s edition in a way that won’t require trading in a favourite tie-dyed T-shirt for one with a maple leaf and a number on it.