What’s New

It has truly been an exciting time for the Kootenay Storytelling Festival in Procter.

Call it luck, call it a celestial alignment, or perhaps it was one of the great Muses smiling upon us, but this Kootenay cultural event has a great year behind it and a fortuitous time ahead. 

Our fundraising efforts have been very fruitful, our story teller line-up for 2007 is stellar and the greater Kootenay community is proving to be extremely supportive of all we do, old and new.

First to the new.

In the fall of 2006, we were the happy recipients of a 2010 Legacy Grant. The first part of our two-pronged application was to create a new event that would leave the Village of Procter and venture into the big city of Nelson, to present a winter storytelling festival. This we did by offering the Festival of Light and Hope in December. Six storytellers from six different traditions told tales of light from around the world. The attendance was fantastic and firmed our resolve to do the winter festival again, next December. The second prong was to revamp, update and greatly improve our website, which has been done by Yellowseed, a local web design company in Nelson.

The Kootenay Storytelling Festival was also recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts as a storytelling event worth supporting. Their one condition was that we increase our honorarium to the storytellers. The Canada Council grant of $4000.00 now allows us to give each Storyteller $250 for their efforts. This begins to acknowledge the full weekend commitment, plus the huge amount of preparation each story needs. It also takes some pressure off the many small local businesses that have sponsored individuals in the past. Our thanks go out to all of them again!

Now to the old: the 9th annual Storytelling Festival in Procter.

With all this excitement about the future and new ventures we cannot forget the reason the festival was started in1999. A sentence from our mission statement sums it up: Keeping our History alive through the Art of Storytelling. Bringing interesting, engaging and fun stories from the Kootenays history is still our main mandate. The stories bring in the History and the storytellers bring the Art. This year we are fortunate to have a great mix of new and returning storytellers, as well as some real, seasoned theatre Artists.

Two of the three actors from the recent Capitol Theatre hit play, The Drawer Boy, have agreed to join our ranks this year. Richard Rowberry will tell a very a very profound tale of heroism in WW1. Luca Myers will bring a more fanciful story of life in the Kootenays. Other local actors Pat Henman, David Edgington and Nick Ruskin will entertain and inform us with stories as wide ranging as the explorer David Thompson and the ghost in the Hume Hotel.

Another new feature at the festival is the inclusion of a Francophone story.  Yes, a story told exclusively in French. We have partnered with the West Kootenay Francophone Association who have provided Simon Goulet to bring us a story of the French influence in the Kootenays. 

Our East Kootenay contribution this year is Joshua Klassen, returning for the fourth time, and he’s only fourteen. Remember how he charmed us as a ten-year-old?

Harrop-Procter storytellers Barry Gray and Cynthia Quinn-Young will tell tales of the earliest years of life in Harrop and Sunshine Bay and Procter, focusing on the settler families who made contributions that are still felt today.

And of course our First Nations Storyteller. This year, Marilyn James of the Sinixt First Nations will return to tell a traditional tale. So there you have an update of the Kootenay Storytelling Festival. Watch for our continuing series of storyteller biographies and story outlines that will be coming out in the weeks ahead. Remember the dates, Saturday and Sunday, July 7 and 8, in Procter. Good stories, good food, good fun.