Village Picnic
Kalf's Berry Farm U-Pick will be open starting this Wednesday July 15 for the saskatoon picking season. Open 8am to 8 pm daily. Located on Township Road 492 between Highway 14 and Highway 857 (Bruce Road). The only farm on the southside of the road. $10/ice cream bucket when you pick. $25/ice cream bucket when we pick it for you.
August 23 Schedule at the Holden Community Hall
Noon Potluck
1 pm The Western Thistles first set
2 pm The Western Thistles second set
3 pm Jed and the Valentine first set
4 pm Jed and the Valentine second set
Questions can be directed to Brad Kalf at bradkalf@gmail.com
It could be a Chautauqua!
Chautauqua was established on the shores of a lake in upstate New York, between Cleveland and Buffalo, in 1874 by John Heyl Vincent, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Lewis Miller, an Akron, Ohio based inventor. It was a school for Sunday school teachers that grew into a collection of twelve hundred cottages and many shops on 225 acres, hosting as many as 150,000 each summer to attend concerts, lectures, and theatre.
Theodore Roosevelt delivered a famous speech at Chautauqua. Something like nine presidents attended at one time or another. So did Amelia Earhart.
Allow me to share my vision. Holden, Alberta, established by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and known as the prettiest townsite on the Grand Trunk Pacific, has fallen on hard times. In the short time my family has been in this area, all four churches in Holden have closed. The elementary school closed - to be replaced by the Holden Rural Academy, which has grades 7-12. The theatre suffered from water damage and had to be demolished.
Still, there are reasons to be optimistic. The natural beauty surrounding this village, perched on a hill with nearby ponds where waterfowl congregate, is simply unmatched. Main Street is well-kept and charming. The Hotel and a couple of other restaurants provide places for people to meet up and discuss the local gossip. The library sources books from across the province (I just ordered a biography on Bill Hawrelak from the Rycroft Library), and the seniors centre features regular shuffleboard tournaments.
What if an effort were made to create an arts and music festival that attracts people from far and wide? Holden is the perfect distance from Edmonton for vacationers looking to escape the city. I believe that Village Picnic, started this year - given enough support from the community - will become a sensation that transforms Holden. Hopefully, we will attract more artists to Holden, and create a really positive vibe for this small village. We have started small this year, with a potluck and two bands, but if we get a lot of people out, it can become an annual event. Please consider helping this wonderful village find its way through these economically depressed times. While Holden has limited employment opportunities, it is undeniably a beautiful slice of Alberta that more people should be able to appreciate. What starts as a one-day music concert could grow, putting Holden on the map as a cultural destination, and over time it could develop into a cool artist community with tourists and retirees coming out from Edmonton to take it all in. Please come to my concert and help Holden find its niche and build a progressive future in this little village.
"It takes a lot of bravery to produce bad public art. And BM Kalf, stylized in reverence to his literary heroes WP Kinsella and WO Mitchell, is brave, and also bold, daring, creative, and so humble, as he tells the stories of the people of the Alberta prairies. His latest offering, Fartknocker! Dunbar goes to Vegreville, is his most mature effort yet, and sports a cast of characters with grace and grit as he weaves his important tales. The Dunbar story caused Bradley to reflect on his junior high experience, "so much was forgotten," he confessed, while the Trip to Brush Hill allowed him to highlight a cool remote part of Alberta not far northeast of Vegreville. The Last Remaining Resident of Haight, Alberta takes a look at the past of an old railway siding between Ryley and Vegreville. Finally, he has written two stories set in Edmonton. The first features a main character who is interested in majoring in history at the U of A, an attractive young woman from St. Paul, Alberta, who takes medication for anxiety, but otherwise has good friends and great marks at school, and one night runs into her crush from Writing class at the grocery store. The results could change the course of Edmonton forever. The final story features Norbert Forest, a man trying to clean himself up after repeated run-ins with the law, and his crush Sheila, the sweet, misunderstood sister of Norbert's business associate, Kate Rogers. To round the book out, Bradley has included a 15 track lyric sheet of his latest album, The Bridge over Waskwei Creek. He looks at failed relationships and failed careers without necessarily labelling himself a failure. He reveals his love for homesteading life, hot prairie days drinking beer by the river, and beautiful clouds. He highlights places like Bonnyville, Alberta, Brookville Road, and the Walmart in Vegreville. This is just what country music needs - an album with two separate songs about cats. Locals are sure to find this book dedicated to the town of Vegreville to be very interesting and thought provoking, while the book is also loaded with Canadiana. It looks at life on the prairie from a variety of views, criminals, young students, a retired divorced schoolteacher, a man working at the cafe on main street in Vegreville while he works on his Ph. D., a soil scientist/farmer from Vegreville, and of course Dunbar, the autobiographical look at Bradley's junior high years in snowy Edmonton, Alberta, taking the schoolbus everyday and fighting off the torments of his strict immigrant mother (Bradley stresses that his real-life mother is wonderful), bullies, and a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dunbar would rather be fishing with his grandfather on Moose Lake than doing his math homework, studying for science class, and riding that school bus every day through dark, snowy Edmonton, Alberta. I can't blame him."
- Tabby McCatz, Hairball Magazine
My new book Fartknocker! Dunbar goes to Vegreville on amazon.
My old book Brothers of McCauley, Edmonton on amazon.
My first book Blazing Community Spirit on amazon.
