So we went to Le Festival du Bois de Maillardville yesterday and had a really great time. It was a gorgeous day and we even got some snow around 4:30. As a born and bread easterner it certainly was a little heartwarming to see some snow on the west coast!
The festival was a lot of fun. A lot of traditional Quebec fare and music. Crepes, saussices, oeux, sirop d'erable, tourtieres, feves aux lards, etc... even tarte au sucre!!! You realize just how rich the old natural resources/forestry based Canadian culture can be.
We had a really great time listening and dancing to the traditional music. La Bottine Souriante played on Saturday night, and we were disapointed to miss their show, but Sunday more than made up for it when we saw De Temps Antan. Really, REALLY fantastic in concert. I'll post a link below.
My only suggestion would be that they incorporate some kind of timber sports demonstration. It would be a great crowd pleaser, and after all, the whole point of the festival is to celebrate the forestry based culture of the francophone village of Maillardville. If you've ever seen pro timber sports in action you'd understand. It's quite a show, and some (though certainly not all!) of these guys are real athletes. Some workshops with word carving would be pretty neat as well.
One thing that caught my eye, and that I'd certainly enjoy participating in, is the Destination Maillardville canoe trip happening on July 12. You sign up to paddle voyageur canoes from Fort Langley down the Fraser river to Maillardville. For the last section you have to portage the canoe through town to a park. I think it would be an absolute riot! They're supposed to be dressed up like voyageurs and singing voyageur songs the whole way...really cool. 'cept I think the voyageurs didn't come further west than the rockies, and it was mostly HBC that opened up this area to european settlement. Could be wrong though!
Anyway, so here they are: De Temps Antan! (you have to skip forward to about 1 min to get to the music)
Enjoy!
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