Last Saturday (Sept. 10), with radiant sunshine gracing a bluebird sky, local residents and visitors from afar flocked to the Brackendale Fall Fair in the Brackendale Farmers Institute Park on Government Road. When it comes to local happenings it doesn't get much better than this annual celebration of our community's heritage.
A hundred years ago, just up the road from the fairgrounds, one of the founding Brackendale couples, Harry and Annie Judd, started a dairy farm and raised eight girls and two boys in the big yellow farmhouse on the road that still bears the family name. Harry also started the first motorized taxi service and Annie ran the household with the precision of a military operation. Adjacent to the Judd farm, Kate Rae, another Brackendale pioneer, kept her family of eight boys and two girls afloat by running a farm and boarding house after her husband Allen was killed in a tragic stump-clearing accident.
With the number of parents pushing prams at the fair, or walking hand in hand with their offspring, it looks like a new baby boom is in full swing in the Shining Valley. In one area of the grounds, recently born farm animals received the undivided attention of wide-eyed youngsters just slightly older than the objects of their admiration. In another area kids got their faces painted.
Near the entrance to the grounds a succession of fairgoers lay face down on a table as a masseuse worked out the kinks in their necks and backs. Across from the massage table tai chi enthusiasts performed their art. In another booth a manicurist offered her services to passersby. A group of musicians in an improvised band shell entertained the crowd with an assortment of tunes.
First founded in 1915, the focus of the Squamish Farmers Institute (as it was then known) was to educate residents about agriculture and to host yearly exhibits of local produce and products. Almost a century later, vendors at the fair hawked homemade oils and lotions, honey and household aides, confections, breads and pies. In the biggest tent, judged exhibits from baked goods to zucchinis were draped with prize ribbons. Fairgoers played mini golf and other games. They chowed down on various culinary delights, including pizza baked in a wood fired oven.
And weaving his way through the crowd of fairgoers was Thor Froslev himself, the de facto president of the Republic of Brackendale, the founding father of an eccentric enterprise known as the Brackendale Art Gallery, and the patriarch of the fair. For years he has also been a self-styled guru of all that pertains to the genus haliaeetus leucocephalus, more commonly known as the bald eagle.
This event and all that it stands for brings to mind the insightful words of one of Canada's most noted living historians, Desmond Morton of McGill University. He advises us that we spend "too much time remembering conflicts, crises, and failures." We seem to forget "the great, quiet continuity of life in a vast and generous land."
To Thor and Dorte Froslev, and to all the volunteers who spend countless hours planning and overseeing the Brackendale Fall Fair, we take our hats off and say thanks for keeping this great tradition alive; we really appreciate your efforts.
