Duane Hicks
Fort Frances will be a happening place this summer with not one but two big events under the big tent at the Sorting Gap Marina.
In addition to the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship running July 24-26, a new event called the “Harmony of Nations Music Festival and Cultural Exchange” is set for July 17-19.
It will bring together Canadian and U.S. performers and instructors from First Nations and the Métis community.
“In our goal to extend the use of the tent at the waterfront this summer, we have put together a team of folks to help us build the ‘Harmony of Nations Musical Festival and Cultural Exchange,’” RRFDC consultant Tannis Drysdale told town council Monday night.
“We now have working with us representatives from various First Nations across the district, and the Ontario Métis Council, as well as musical folks from Fort Frances,” she noted.
“We’ve written about $150,000 in grant applications,” Drysdale added.
“We’re starting to sign performers and we’re really excited about the festival that will occur just in front of the bass championship.”
An announcement regarding the launch of the “Harmony of Nations Musical Festival and Cultural Exchange” website is slated for next week.
In related news, Drysdale said the RRFDC has worked with the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce to subsidize a system that allows the latter to spend money on tourism.
In the past, the town was spending $7,500 to help the Chamber pay for tourism promotion.
But now the Chamber is eligible for the same one-third, one-third, one-third funding from the municipal, provincial, and federal governments that the RRFDC gets, noted Drysdale.
The RRFDC already has applied for funding to hire summer students, along with an additional intern, to assist the town with summer events like the Canada Day parade, the “Harmony of Nations Musical Festival and Cultural Exchange,” the bass tournament, the cross-border tug-of-war “Peace Pull,” and the Boundary Waters Dragon Boat Races.
While the town awaits the terms and conditions from the province on occupying the shuttered Ontario Tourism Information Centre here, the summer students will be at the border handing out information at least 50 hours a week all summer long.
They’ll also make sure the Sorting Gap and Fort Frances Museum are well-stocked with brochures.
On behalf of the museum, the RRFDC applied last month for funding for a walking tour of Fort Frances.
This tour, which will utilize digital technology to inform people who take it of various historical sites in town, will link the downtown and waterfront areas.
As well, the RRFDC has joined National Geographic’s “Heart of the Continent” marketing program and is exploring the possibility of charter services for summer tours—flying in and out of Toronto to Fort Frances.
“Heart of the Continent” has been an ongoing project to have the international border between northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Ontario recognized and promoted as “the largest expanse of public greenspace in the heart of North America.”
