Events surrounding the Saskatchewan Handcraft Festival have been leaving Battleford and area residents asking questions.
For the first time in 42 years, the Saskatchewan Handcraft Festival won’t take place as it would have around this time of year. Also, the Battleford parade will be on Friday, Aug. 11. With the Northwest Territorial Days Parade in North Battleford on Tuesday, Aug. 15, both parade dates are in closer proximity to each other, as they were in past years when the annual fair was held in July.
In the past, a series of events which brought provincial attention to the Battlefords happened on a weekend in mid-July. The Battleford parade kicked off festivities on the Friday, while the Handcraft Festival was in the arena. In the Alex Dillabough Centre, the juried exhibition called Dimensions organized by the Saskatchewan Craft Council, showcased the work of provincial artists. The Premier’s Prize for Outstanding Entry, which often attracted the premier, was also that weekend, along with a street dance.
1993 was the first time Dimensions wasn’t held in conjunction with the Handcraft Festival, writes Amanda Bosiak for the Saskatchewan Craft Council. While the awards returned to Battleford in 1994, the juried exhibition moved permanently in 2003. The Dimensions awards ceremony is now held in Saskatoon and Regina, and since 2009, Dimensions has been a bi-annual event. Dimensions awards took place this year on June 24 at the Refinery Arts and Spirit Centre in Saskatoon, while the exhibition started at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery in Saskatoon on May 20 and runs until July 29.
Declining attendance and heat in the arena led the 2005 Handcraft Festival to be held in the Alex Dillabough Centre, which saw an increase in attendance and marketer sales. Attendance declined after that year.
Battleford Mayor Ames Leslie and Saskatchewan Craft Council’s Member Services Coordinator Alexa Hainsworth said declining attendance and location explain the market’s cancellation.
“[Battleford] is a little bit further off the circuit line than what a lot of people like,” Leslie said. “It’s unfortunate but I know it’s something Battlefords Tourism fought to try to keep around.”
Leslie said Premier Lorne Calvert’s decision to move Dimensions was “in essence what ended the handcraft festival.”
Hainsworth pointed to low attendance.
“What it really came down to was the community engaging with this handcraft market, so we found that our numbers dropped in admissions quite rapidly since the beginning of the Handcraft Festival,” Hainsworth said. “We upped our advertising quite a bit for last year and found that that wasn’t successful.”
Hainsworth said bringing the festival back to the Battlefords isn’t out of the question.
“This doesn’t mean we’re not interested in taking part in things that are already happening in the Battlefords,” Hainsworth said. “For instance the Western Development Museum also has a craft fair, and what we’d like to do is help our artists maybe find their way into other markets such as that.”
Some residents have found the decision to cancel the festival painful, since the creation of the Saskatchewan Craft Council was a direct result of the Handcraft Festival in the seventies. Battleford Town Administrator Eileen Barry, along with Jenny Hambridge, on staff with the provincial government department that funded the event, founded the Festival in 1973, and the two organized the first market. The Handcraft Festival became one of the longest running craft markets in the province.
Leslie said Battlefords Tourism fought to try to keep the festival but that the Craft Council no longer found continuing it justifiable. He added that efforts are underway to find activities for mid-July.
“Slowly the street dance went away and Dimensions went away, so the impact to the town [of losing the festival] is significant, but not as big as all the other parts have been over the years,” Leslie said. “It definitely is another empty weekend that is not there anymore, and something that the town and organizations in the community are trying to fill with something else in the future.”
