WINNIPEG – Rows of fresh vegetables, jars of jam, neat plates of dainties and carefully chosen flowers are arranged around the starkly lit hockey arena.
This could be any rink on the Prairies, briefly transformed into a showcase of homespun arts.
But there’s no barn nearby with curry-combed cows and horses. Instead, there’s a busy freeway that leads to downtown Winnipeg.
The St. Vital Agricultural Society has held a fair here for 86 years. For the first part of its history, there were plenty of farmers in the neighborhood.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
An article in the Dec. 17, 1931 issue of The St. Vital Lance noted that in 1918, 1,800 people lived in the municipality. By 1931, it was one of the fastest-growing areas of the province with 10,300 residents.
These days, St. Vital is a well-heeled suburb of Winnipeg with plenty of commercial activity. The fair is the only visible reminder of its agricultural roots.
It is one of the oldest agricultural fairs in the province and the only one held in a city.
Shirley Perron, president of the agricultural society, said part of what keeps the fair going is a group of about 15 women known as the “fair ladies” who do much of the work.
Judges are chosen from a provincial list, but they should take care in how they grade the coffee cakes.
Disagree with judgment
“Our fair ladies will tell us if they don’t like a judge, if they don’t agree with his or her way of judging things. We take that into consideration,” Perron said.
The fair ladies meet almost every month to plan the fair. In the past, they’ve made quilts for raffles. “Most of the ladies are crafty people. We sew and knit,” said Ethel Chadwick, who has been a fair lady for more than 40 years.
At the fair, the ladies preside over the tables of handicrafts and preserves.
At Margaret’s Place, the official watering hole at the fair, you can get a plate of dainties and an iced tea for $1.50. Margaret is a fair lady too.
The fair ladies even have a president. But Lynn Francis said she doesn’t feel qualified to be talking about the group.
“I’ve only been a fair lady for about 10 years,” she said.
Joyce Tod said she was coaxed into the group by her mother-in-law in 1954. As far as she can determine, the group has been around since the fair began in 1909.
She recently found a ledger dating back to just after the Second World War. The book showed butter cost 32 cents a pound, and sugar was a few pennies cheaper.
But the fair has kept itself up-to-date. The whist drives of the 1940s have become the chili cook-offs of today. And Perron said she now uses a computer to figure out the prize money.
