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Pancakes, ball tournaments, and community. That’s how La Broquerie celebrates St. Jean Baptiste Day.
They kicked off the weekend celebration with a pancake breakfast, and Claude Moquin explained the history of the day they have commemorated for 126 years.
“It means the celebration of the patron saint of the French-Canadian Catholic person. That's what it was all about over 130 years ago. Even more, our ancestors came from Quebec. In Quebec, they celebrated St. Jean Baptiste Day, it's where it all started, it's out there. We just brought it to Manitoba, and some other people brought it to Western Canada," Moquin says.
He adds it was a tradition started by the first settlers in the La Broquerie area and has “continued since then.”
In addition to the pancake breakfast and athletic tournaments, they have a parade, live entertainment, a mass, children's games and a firework show. Moquin says the two-day celebration is not possible without their core committee of seven and 70 to 100 volunteers responsible for different tasks that arise during the weekend.
Finally, he encourages people to support communities across the area.
"Support your local community events and don't be shy to mingle, to talk to people and don't be shy to go to other communities as well,” he says. “It's always nice to see what other people are doing for their different causes in their community. Ours has been a long-standing one. Others have only been going for 20 or some odd years, but they're all well worth it, and it supports usually the arts and the culture as well of Manitoba.”
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Here are photos from the event: