Heard someone jawing the other day that the St. Jean Baptiste Festival was getting too big for its britches, what with all the concerts and shows and events. Fellow said he liked Frontier Daze a whole lot better because that’s what he remembered when his kids were growing up. Here are my thoughts on the subject.
1 – What’s the difference? None! Both have been reborn through the spirit of the community and a good bit of hard work by a lot of dedicated volunteers.
2 – Both have stayed true to the principles of Father Primeau who was a big part of Frontier Daze. Both events have the community put on a community celebration locally rather than sending people off to the exhibition in Edmonton.
3 – It’s not too big. There’s still lots of stuff that the St. Jean Baptiste Festival doesn’t have. It doesn’t have Demo Derby and there’s two reasons for that. One. Legal already has a Demo Derby at their festival in July. Two. The potholes on 100 Avenue at the east end of town are not wide or deep enough yet to make a decent derby pit.
4 – Another thing the Morinville festival doesn’t have is that little red train the mayor drives around in at Legal’s parade. It’s still there and it is one of the things that just screams Fête au Village. Closest thing we have to that here is when the Shriners come to the parade in their little cars and motorbikes.
5 – There is one thing Frontier Daze, Fête au Village, and St. Jean Baptiste Festival all have in common and that is big, greasy French fries. If there is one thing I love, it’s big, greasy French fries. See you at the Midway.
The St Jean Baptiste is the best thing to hit Morinville since Frontier Days vanished. It may even the best thing since slice bread. We can only hope it gets bigger and better. Thanks to visionaries like Ron Cust, Paul Smith and Stephen Dafoe. One observation is that Ron has similar haircut as Father Primeau and Paul’s haircut is very similar to Father Primeau’s boss.