As summer draws to a close, parade season in the Pembina Valley is in full swing. For the remainder of the month, residents will have ample opportunity to enjoy the customary sights and sounds of the crowd-drawing festivities.
The next one on the schedule is Winkler’s Harvest Festival parade, which Carrie Heenan has been organizing for the past thirteen years.
“It’s a fun day,” she says.
Long-time attendees of Winkler’s Harvest Festival parade will be familiar with its structure: the parade begins at 10 a.m. on 15th Street, goes down to Mountain Avenue, up Main Street, and then west on Roblin Boulevard.
This year’s number of entries indicate that the parade is as lively as ever — there are over one hundred.
“When the clock hits 11, that’s when the last entry [will enter] the parade, so you can expect to be there for about an hour and even a little more,” says Heenan.
There are some new entries this year, so parade viewers will have a chance to see new floats mixed with the familiar favourites. One of which, for Heenan, is Carman Granite’s Flintstones vehicle.
“[That] always stands out in my mind,” she says. “I always think, ‘that's so cool.’”
This year, on the heels of two tremendous seasons, the Winkler Whips and the Winkler Flyers will have the honour of marshalling the parade. The Whips are the 2023 Border Baseball League champions, and Winkler Flyers won the Turnbull Cup last season for the first time since 1998, so there is plenty to celebrate alongside these teams.
Heenan says that she is also looking forward to hearing the bag pipe music of the Lord Selkirk Pipe Band.
“A parade isn't a parade without the pipe band,” she says.
A new guideline introduced for the parade this year will also add to its entertainment value.
“There is a bit of a decorating rule that we've kind of pushed for,” says Heenan. “When you are entered into a parade, you shouldn't be driving the vehicle that you would normally drive down the street, you should decorate it. All we ask is that you put some balloons on it, or some flowers or make some effort to actually be in a parade.”
Heenan hopes that the new rule will emphasize the special festive status of a parade.
“It's a treat,” she says. “It's a special event, so that means that you should also make your vehicle special.”
Although enjoying the flurry of music, colourful spectacles, and large vehicles at the parade is the priority at the event, it’s also important to be mindful of safe parade-viewing practices.
“We ask that the parents keep an eye on their kids for sure,” says Heenan. “Keep them off the curbs. We have some big equipment coming and when they're making those turns and kids are sitting on the side of the curb, [it’s risky]. It would be really nice if they stayed on the boulevard [to] stay safe.”
Parents are also cautioned to be vigilant about how their children collect treats.
“What we do is we ask the participants to walk along the side of the boulevard and hand the candy to the children instead of throwing it from their float or from the vehicle,” says Heenan. “It becomes very dangerous because candy is dropped and then the float goes by, and kids want to run onto the street, and we don't want that.”
While the parade participants are versed in how to hand out candy and items safely, stray pieces of candy still occasionally land in unsafe areas unintentionally, so some caution is still required on the part of parents and their children.
Parade goers are also reminded to watch for traffic as pedestrians, and to watch for pedestrians as drivers, since there will be an increased amount of people on the roads either lining up for the parade or finding a suitable place to view it.
“I would just say to try and abide by the rules . . . . If you're in your vehicle and you know there's a parade Saturday morning of the Harvest Festival, just try and take a different route,” says Heenan. “There's so much traffic going by us, and it gets dangerous because a lot of us are standing in the middle of the road and trying to direct traffic. Just be polite and be patient.”
With these safety guidelines in place, all that’s left to do is to enjoy Winkler Harvest Festival’s parade (as well as the other upcoming parades this season). For Heenan, the highlight of Winkler’s event is the anticipation and positive energy on Saturday morning.
“My favourite thing . . . is to be on the corner of 15th and Pembina, and as the floats are entering the parade, I love to welcome them there that morning,” she says. “It's a great interaction with every participant in the parade. I absolutely love it.”
For more information about Winkler’s Harvest Festival parade, click here.
~With files from Ty Hildebrand and Connie Bailey~