The return of the Moose Jaw Hometown Fair in 2022, after no Fair for three years due to COVID - 19 mandates may be described as a success but a little known incident the last day of the event likely made this year’s Fair worthwhile.
Delivering her report on how the Fair did to the Moose Jaw Exhibition Board chair, Judy Wilson mentioned an incident which happened in regards to the RCMP Musical Ride.
“It also should be mentioned we had a (former) RCMP member as our guest as well,” Wilson explained, adding “Kennedy answered the phone one day and there was a daughter speaking about her dad who had been in the RCMP at one time and anyhow I phoned them back.”
While Wilson spoke to the daughter of the former RCMP member, she learned the man had cancer and wanted to see the Musical Ride.
“Anyway he use to be in the RCMP and then went into the city police in Calgary. He just recently found out he had Stage Four cancer and he was quite wanting to come and see them (RCMP Musical Ride) and we ended up inviting him, his daughter and his family to be our guest at one of the afternoon shows. They were so pleased and honoured that we brought him down here. He even wore his red serge. Afterwards she texted me and sent me pictures. They were very pleased we brought him in to be an honoured guest,” Wilson said.
In her report to the Moose Jaw Exhibition Board, Wilson said the 2022 edition of the Fair went well.
“Since we haven’t had a (Moose Jaw Hometown) Fair for a couple of years we felt that the Fair turned out really well. It was well-attended and everything went along really well,” she said.
The centrepiece for the Fair is the Midway and this year’s four days worked well.
“On the Midway we had more rides this year. They provided about 28 rides and they actually came and set up a little bit earlier and I think that kind of helped sell a few more tickets on our end,” she said, adding “they were pleased at the end of the four days with how everything went when we met with the Midway.”
A change in the use of the Moose Jaw Exhibition Convention Centre was also a positive for the Fair.
“We tried something a little bit different this year in the (Moose Jaw Exhibition) Convention Centre here. We put up four bouncy castles or activity centres for kids and that seemed to go over really well. It gave the kids a chance to come in here, as well as their parents could sit and rest and have a breather,” she said.
“That was really attended well especially the one night they had a little bit of rain. It really filled up fast.”
Wilson thanked the volunteers who helped out with the bouncy castles but if the event is held again there is a need to hire people to help out.
“The 4 H cattle show and sale, we didn’t hear anything from them. We didn’t hear of anything that didn’t go well, nobody came and say that it didn’t,” Wilson reported.
There was one event that had to be cancelled though, due to an infection horses catch circulating in the area.
The light horse show had to be cancelled “to protect the tenant’s horses here,” as well as the RCMP’s Musical Ride’s horses because of the potential of strangles present in horses coming to the show.
Strangles is a contagious upper respiratory disease in horses. Strangles is treatable with anti-bacterial drugs but is can cause swelling so severe that can lead to death - thus the name strangles.
The students who were suppose to be part of the horse show were able to come up on Sunday afternoon and met with members of the RCMP Musical Ride and were given a tour of the horses by the Mounties to make up for the light horse show’s cancellation.
Despite the cancellation of the Exhibition horse show the main equestrian event of the Fair went well.
“The (RCMP) Musical Ride went well. It was well attended. The only thing we were unable to get was for them to partake in the parade this year unfortunately. They had to go to the (RCMP) depot and so they were unable to get back in time,” she said.
As part of their tour, the RCMP Musical Ride like to help out local charities and in Moose Jaw it was no different. The Musical Ride had honoured guests from the Health Foundation, Prairie South School Division and the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division.
“We went ahead and made a donation to the Health District, the Public School (Division) and the Catholic School (Division). The Separate (School Division) they turned around and gave their donation to Hunger In Moose Jaw. I thought that was pretty nice of them to do that.”
The Fair this year had a closely monitored budget because it was unknown what the public response would be coming out of the COVID - 19 restrictions, she said.
“We just watched it a little bit. But overall we were fairly pleased with the entertainment. Everything seemed to go fairly well. We were quite pleased with everything.”
No attendance and financial figures were released on how the Fair made out financially.
