Situated in North-West Ontario, Sioux Narrows on the Lake of the Woods may be one of the finest non-fly-in fisheries in North America. Its waters offer just about every freshwater species you can find in Canada.
Whenever Sioux Narrows is pictured in tourist promotions, it is seldom for its reputation as a home for exceptional art. It is most often depicted with someone holding up a big fish to the camera.
Its icon bridge has been the landmark for those driving on land or over its waterways.
For decades the Sioux Narrows Bridge was advertised as the world’s longest single span wooden bridge. I don’t know how many other single span wooden bridges there are in the world, or how they compare in size, but it seemed to be the hook that visitors talked about, and wore on the tee shirts they found in local gift shops.
This was the closest most people would ever associate this small resort community with art.
So much so that maintaining the look and feel of the bridge was deemed to be of such importance that when it needed massive repairs a few years ago, while it was rebuilt with steel, it was recreated in exactly the same configuration as the original. Wood beams, adding thousands of dollars to the construction costs, were wrapped around the steel girding to retain all the details of the old span.
Throughout the year it is the most predominant art form you are likely to find driving through the community. Except if you happen to be there around any long week-end in August.
It is then when a significant percentage of the permanent residents direct their energies to re-creating another successful Sioux Narrows Arts Festival,. From a population of just over 400, the village is packed with visitors from throughout North America to the tiny curling rink where the Sioux Narrows Arts Festival has been held annually for the past 50 years.
From early morning vehicles from the American states of Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas start filing into the parking lot in front of the rink. Mingled amongst them are cars from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and of course the home province of Ontario.
A shuttle bus takes visitors back and forth from the main street parking areas after the rink lot is packed.
This is not just a Sioux Narrows annual event; it is a regular pilgrimage for those who appreciate the offerings in the booths that line the aisles.
Wood carvings, home-made jewelry, and paintings of the great outdoors are the staples to be found in the 44 booths that are allowed into the festival each year. This is a non-profit event. Each person who volunteers does so because they believe in what the event does for the community, but also in the showcase it provides for the artists who want to be there.
Jennifer Strath has been the chairperson of the festival for the past five years. “Celebrating our 50th year is a special achievement,” she says. “To make it something extra special this year we have added a appreciation bar-b-que on Saturday evening”
“We are inviting guests as well as all the business and volunteers who have made this event the success it has become.” At just $5 a person there is no doubt the town hall will be jam packed that night.
Strath says she visits art show around the region during the year to find artists she thinks would compliment what other artists are already offering.
She suggests that perhaps the most stressful task of the entire festival event is left to the designated jurors, who must decide which of the almost 150 applicants who apply to show their art each year, become one of the selected forty four.
Every year serious buyers arrive early hoping to snatch away the works they will take back to their home state, province, or community.
When I first came to Sioux Narrows it was for the fishing, some of the best I had experienced on a consistent basis. So much so I ended up buying a cottage here.
I fell in love with the area and the friendliness of the people who are easy to get to know and like in, what may be, one of the smallest tourist towns in the nation.
With only 400 permanent residents, Sioux Narrows truly is a small community. Even many of them choose to go south for significant stretches each winter, shrinking the population even further during the off-season.
In spring, as the snow melts and ice disappears, everything changes. Highway 71, which runs between Kenora and Fort Francis, begins to fill up with license plates from throughout the United States and Canada.
All-terrain vehicles, often hauling large modern fishing boats and trailers, make the roads seem even more crowded as they make their way to fishing camps, or the public marine launch area in Sioux Narrows.
Throughout the summer, the town seldom seems busy. Rainy days will bring the fishers into town, but other than that, they seem to spend their days on the water and their evenings resting for the next day’s fishing.
While I appreciated the outdoors aspects of the region, I hardly paid attention to any of the advertising that only seemed to succeed in making the roads too crowded to venture into town during the art festival weekend.
I didn’t think they were serious. How could such a little place hope to put together anything other than a paint-by-numbers display of local want-to-be Rembrandts.
However, one year with guests at the cottage and some considerable cajoling form my wife I agreed it would be the right thing to do. “It will give us a broader scope of what Sioux Narrows was all about” I said as I reluctantly agreed to go.
We went, our guests spent, we spent, and we still get compliments on our purchases that we hang with pride.
There is not much that I can think of that would keep me off the water on a warm summer’s day on Lake of the Woods. But now, like so many others, I go back to the festival year after year as well. There is always a turnover of artists in the booths, and one never knows when the next perfect gem will be calling me to imagine a place in our home or cottage that will be perfect for it.
This year the 50th annual festival, now about my 15 annual, will take place on July 30 and July 31. In this special year it will be a big one. And of this there is no doubt, the fish will have to wait. I will be going back to view, and likely purchase, some incredible art…again.
You can read more of my Canadian and worldwide travel stories here on Tripatlis or on my website http://journeystravelgear.com/DestinationStories.cfm
If you have travel question email me at [email protected] I will answer your questions and they will also be seen in my weekly Saturday column in the Winnipeg Free Press and posted at http://journeystravelgear.com/AskJourneys.cfm as well.