Festival volunteers crucial to success of local events

Photo: Contributed

Central Okanagan-West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings.

It is always a pleasure to be home, especially after particularly lengthy legislative sessions.

For me, the May long weekend signals not only the start of our local festival season but one that reconnects me to community, land and conservation.

This past weekend, I once again enjoyed four days of the Meadowlark Nature Festival, an event that has given thousands of people, locals and visitors, an opportunity to learn about and celebrate the natural world we live in. It is a chance to recharge our spirits and make time for wellness – a pursuit I’ve always found is easier outside in our stunning natural environment.

Meadowlark has been an annual fixture in the calendar since 1998—more than a quarter-century of field trips, talks, art and indigenous knowledge covering everything from geology to birds to stars to insects and everything in between. There are more than 50 events to choose from throughout the Syilx lands of the south Okanagan and Similkameen valleys.

My Meadowlark weekend started on a very chilly Friday morning with a bicycle tour along the KVR trail from Chute Lake down to Naramata. I’m joined every year on that tour by John Shaske, a national railway expert (he’s a licenced railroad engineer as well as a professional pharmacist, writer and tour guide) and together we try to cover the natural and historical wonders of that route.

There was fresh snow on the ground at Chute Lake but the birds were singing and the flowers blooming as we coasted down to the big tunnel at Adra, now nearing the end of its rehabilitation thanks to the support and hard work of the folks at Greyback Construction.

The next day I led a birding tour of the south Okanagan and along the way met a couple of the other field trips underway.

The Meadowlark Festival is organized by the Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Alliance, and on Sunday I joined 35 other keen birders on the Okanagan Big Day Challenge, a fun cycling and walking event that raises funds for another OSCA project, the Vaseux Lake Bird Observatory. That initiative monitors bird migratory bird populations throughout the interior of B.C. at a site just north of Vaseux Lake. Drop by for a visit any morning from August through October.

The Meadowlark Festival and Vaseux Lake Bird Observatory are unique, but in at least one way they are very much like other community events across the south Okanagan and West Kootenay—they rely on the hard work and generosity of volunteers—hundreds of them.

I know this is the case for every community event in the region, from Festival of the Grape in Oliver to the Rock Creek Fall Fair to the Hills Garlic Festival and everything in between.

Volunteers are at the backbone of every event and festival that make our region so welcoming and dynamic. I’ve read that Canada boasts more than 13 million volunteers, bringing more than $55 billion to our economy each year. I know the benefits volunteers bring to our communities goes well beyond dollar figures.

Some may believe volunteers are folks with time to spare, but what I’ve come to learn is that it is not extra time that breeds volunteers, it is extra heart. That caring spirit is why our festivals not only provide amazing cultural and economic benefit but also provide the connections that bring our communities together and keep us strong and vibrant.

As we roll into the summer months and our schedules fill with the many celebrations our region offers, please take the time to thank the volunteers that make it all possible.

If that is you, I’m truly grateful and I look forward to flipping some pancakes alongside you this summer.

Richard Cannings is the NDP MP for South Okanagan-West Kootenay.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.