The summer is usually a time for people all over Canada to enjoy the outdoors, attend events, and celebrate the weather with their friends and family.
This will be an unforgettable summer for many, unfortunately due to the Covid-19 pandemic changing everything for everyone all over the world.
Even with provinces like Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec announcing their reopening plans, there are no firm dates on when many businesses and events will be given the go-ahead to get back to normal.
For the foreseeable future, gatherings large than 10 people will not be allowed and this could last through the summer.
With so many large events all over Canada running through the summer, the cancellations are beginning to pile up.
An emphasis was put on how serious the situation is when Calgary Stampede President Dana Peers announced on April 23 that the Stampede is cancelled this year due to the pandemic.
This will be the first year the event has ever been cancelled since it became annual in 1923, but with gathering restrictions, an event that draws over one million people would never be possible.
“It was not a decision we came by lightly, but it is a decision in the best interest of public health and safety,” said Peers.
“I promise you that this is not the end to Stampede spirit this year, or in years to come.”
The cancellation of a major event like the Stampede has begun a snowball effect with other summer events across Canada.
Every sporting event, fair, and celebration has now come into question on whether they should continue to be planned or ultimately cancelled in preparation for the inevitable.
Moose Mountain Pro Rodeo
On the heels of the Calgary Stampede announcing their cancellation, the Moose Mountain Pro Rodeo in Kennedy followed suit.
“It was a decision amongst the committee and with the way the economy is we know the sponsorships won’t be there,” said Moose Mountain Pro Rodeo President Tye Cancade. “We won’t be the ones last-minute running around looking for sponsorships when really no companies have the money right now with everything shutdown.”
“With that also, we don’t know when international travel will be open again — we have a lot of cowboys come from Australia and the U.S. — and if you don’t have the contestants show up then you aren’t going to have a very good show.”
“Between Saturday and Sunday, I’d say we have anywhere from 1,500-2,500 in the stands,” said Cancade. “Plus you’re looking at probably around 120 contestants from all over North America, Australia, and New Zealand.”
The unprecedented decision was not easy for Cancade and the committee, but they had no other choice.
“It’s absolutely huge, the last time the Moose Mountain Rodeo was cancelled was back during World War II,” said Cancade.
“They cancelled one year because of all the men and women gone to service, so in 82 years of history this is the second time.”
“Nobody wants to see it (cancelled) and it really hurts the economy for our small town. It knocks out one of the only events we have in this town so it definitely is a huge disappointment.”
The board is currently in the process of discussing putting on an event at a later date that would still give the community of Kennedy and surrounding areas something to look forward to.
“We’re looking at some other ideas,” said Cancade. “I don’t think it’s going to be a pro rodeo at this point just because I can’t see the economy turning around fast enough for what we need from our sponsors and people themselves.”
“Our fans are going to be tight on money, a lot of people are out of work. They’re not going to have the money to come out and spend like they usually do.”
“We are thinking of different ideas for some kind of event to hold,” said Cancade. “Hopefully we can come up with something and this blows over and everybody can get back to normal.”
With no rodeo this year, Cancade says the extra time will be put to good use to prepare for 2021 and make up for the cancellation.
“We’re already thinking towards next year and how we can take what we learned this year and what we had planned this year and move it over to next year,” said Cancade. “We’re going to build on top of the new things we had coming this year.”
“Next year is going to be a whole fresh start. It’s going to be a whole new field I believe. There’s a lot of exciting news to come from us.”
Moosomin Rodeo
Moosomin Rodeo President Mike Sidoryk made the decision last week that the 2020 Moosomin Rodeo will be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We had a conference meeting and of course none of us want to cancel it — we definitely want this event to go — but based on the provincial plan our event falls into that phase four and five for the gathering size,” said Sidoryk.
“There’s so many levels to it and we’re two months out. We tried as hard as we could to hold onto it, but we had to think of community safety as well. Even if things here were good, we have entries from across western Canada and we don’t want to cause any issues with that.”
“Also we had to think about it from the sponsor side,” said Sidoryk.
“With small businesses having a lack of revenue for the last couple of weeks, it’s tough for an event to ask for sponsors when they’re trying to keep employees paid and their doors open.”
Having to cancel the event due to something that is completely out of their control makes it hit harder says Sidoryk.
“It’s a huge disappointment,” said Sidoryk. “If it was a location situation we could work on a new area for the event and stuff, but with this there’s just no way around it.”
“You’re at the mercy of what the world, country, and province are doing and it’s out of your control. That’s the worst thing about it.”
The number of people an event like this can impact is massive from those attending to those competing to those in the community.
“Total people over the weekend is pushing somewhere between 1,200-1,600,” said Sidoryk. “It’s a ton of people, from western Alberta to eastern Manitoba and even some from Ontario. There’s even the Australian guys that come over as well, tons of people.”
“It’s one more kick on the small communities too. It’s a lot of economic impact over the course of two or three days with grocery stores, fuel, and restaurants and the amount of competitors that come through.”
For now there’s no alternative option, but Sidoryk says the committee is looking at the idea of doing something later in the year if it’s possible.
“We’ve talked about it off the cuff that there may be some potential for a one-day event,” said Sidoryk. “Maybe a rough stock event, bull riding, saddle bronc, bareback and stuff like that.”
“End of August, early September maybe, but even then we’re grasping at straws just hoping for something to do. Virden is in August and they cancelled their rodeo already based on the same situation of community involvement and safety of everybody in the area.”
“A few of us have talked and said it would be great to do at least something like that,” said Sidoryk. “If restrictions don’t change on event sizes and group gatherings then we’re just looking at 2021 at this point.”
With more time to put into the 2021 Moosomin Rodeo, this will be used as a chance to invest even more efforts into bettering it for next year says Sidoryk.
“Absolutely we will be resetting and looking forward to 2021,” said Sidoryk. “One of our committee members said this is our opportunity to make things bigger and better for 2021.”
“Every year we like doing a little bit of improvement to the arena and facilities. This is potentially a year to be used as a work year. We’re going to do things down there that’s going to help events in the future.”
“We’re going to move forward,” said Sidoryk. “It’s not the fault of the community or the committee members or whatever that situation might be that the event wasn’t a success or couldn’t go through. It’s out of our control and all you can do is keep your head high and move forward.”
Nobody wants to make the decisions to cancel a beloved event, but when the trailblazers are cancelling, it leaves no choice.
“I put off this decision as long as I possibly could,” said Sidoryk.
“When you hear that the Calgary Stampede cancels — they’re around the same weekend as us — that starts putting things in perspective when an event like that is cancelling.”
Maryfield Agriculture Society Fair
Another small community having to make a tough decision due to Covid-19 is Maryfield. They made the decision to cancel the Maryfield Agriculture Society Fair last week.
“I think for the last two months it has been in our minds,” said Maryfield Agriculture Society Fair Director Janet Lemon. “All of us were seeing what was happening around us and seeing the number of events also being cancelled and realized it just wasn’t going to be able to happen.”
Community fairs are all about people coming together to appreciate each other and everything the community offers and that just isn’t something that can be done during the pandemic with the need for physical distancing.
“It’s disappointing,” said Lemon. “The fun part about the fair is the people getting together to share exhibits, the horse show, the entertainment for children — a lot of the major parts of it have to do with being together and enjoying the day and when you can’t do that it is disappointing.”
“We do put a lot of work into it, we start really thinking about it in January for what we’re going to do for the summer. I’m in charge of entertainment and talking to the people I need to for entertainment I just realized we can’t have a petting zoo or bouncers because of the whole sanitary issue.”
“The more we thought about it we realized it just isn’t feasible,” said Lemon. “To have events where multiple people are judging exhibits and handling them it just was absolutely beyond our control in being able to have it in a safe way.”
With the cancellation the board has begun looking into some alternative options including potentially hosting a virtual fair.
“We had a Zoom meeting and we talked about maybe in the fall having a supper in conjunction with another organization,” said Lemon.
“We are discussing having a virtual exhibit where people will submit pictures.”
“I don’t think we will judge those because it’s very hard to judge things through a picture, but we are going to try and have something like that and just a few classes. It’s more for the enjoyment of just having something.”
“Another thought that we’ve had is perhaps we could save the pictures and show them to the people at Sunrise Villa so they could see some exhibit,” said Lemon. “We have talked also for a couple weeks maybe having a lawn display where people can still walk around the village and see people’s floral displays, which would be specially set up to remember this occasion.”
“This is in the preliminary stages of talking about plans, but we are going to have something virtual we just haven’t decided how we’ll set that up. It’ll be through Facebook probably with a page we’ll set up for exhibits.”
“With our virtual fair we are thinking of awarding some draw prizes for the people who enter,” said Lemon. “The prizes will be coupons from locals businesses so that way we would be buying something from our local sponsor.”
Without the fair this year, Lemon says it will put into perspective how important events like this are for a smaller community like Maryfield.
“Maybe something will come from this and I think people will realize that not having a fair will remind them how much they do enjoy having it,” said Lemon. “It’s really the only big event we have in Maryfield.”
“We were just sort of evolving. We have some new members now who are really helping regenerate the fair and giving some new ideas which we really appreciate. It’s sad that we can’t continue that this year.”
Even with Saskatchewan’s reopening plan there are a lot of unknowns at this point and asking people for time and money just didn’t seem right said Lemon.
“The thing is we just don’t know,” said Lemon. “By the time the fair comes around the restrictions might open up, but we just didn’t want to do all that planning and turn around and be told that we can’t have it.”
“Another big reason is we get a lot of support and donations from local businesses and I just did not feel I could go and approach these businesses for money at such a time. That’s a big factor, we can just not ask our community to give money when right now they’re suffering.”
