Hay River residents can look forward to a busy week, as the annual Hay Days Festival begins in just a few days.

The festival will begin on Wednesday, July 23^rd with a special art and music showcase at the Hay River Youth Centre. The next three days will be packed full with a number of different events to celebrate music, art, and culture.

April Glaicar, the Coordinator for the event, shared some more of what people can expect at the Festival.

“We also have workshops for children, youth, adults, and families starting as well on Wednesday. On Thursday we’ve got more workshops, and we have the Acoustic Music Night at the old Hay River Zoo building. At the same time, we have different musicians playing a few miles away at the Bob McMeekin amphitheater park.”

Glaicar spoke on the large Indigenous presence at the Festival, saying that their involvement is always very important.

“Traditional arts are beautiful, and they have a story, so it’s really great when we can share that story. I’d say we have fairly great representation, and we’re always reaching out, trying to bring more people to the events and to teach and share at the vendor workshops as well. Even if they’re not teaching at a workshop, if we have table space, we like to try to reach out to some of the Elder artisans and try to get them that opportunity to share and sell their work as well.

“We love to have the Kátł’odeeche Drummers open our festival every year with a drum prayer, and that’s always a really special, powerful event to watch, and it’s really nice for someone who’s visiting the area to get to participate in that.”

When asked about what the people of Hay River enjoy the most about the Festival, Glaicar said that since the event first started in the early 2000’s, there’s a strong sense of community, as well as an excitement to be able to take part in the Festival every year with familiar faces.

“We really work hard as a Festival to be inclusive of the community and to try not to have price as a barrier for anybody to participate in any of the events. Our workshops, we have sponsorships with the NWT Power Corporation which helps us keep the cost down so that we don’t charge children, youth or families anything to participate in workshops.”

Ahead of the Festival’s first day, Glaicar says that they are still accepting volunteers to come and lend a hand. Anyone who wishes to sign up for volunteer work can get in touch with April or any other organizers on the Hay Days Festival website.