Securing the Future of AlgomaTrad Heritage Arts

The Securing the Future of the AlgomaTrad Heritage Arts began in the summer with a very soft launch to folks who attended our summer concert series. Our Artistic Directors Julie and Pat and the Board have been working on a much bigger launch of the campaign, and we hope to have this up by Giving Tuesday. In the meantime, we have been incredibly busy with so many AlgomaTrad projects and programs, including:

• The AlgomaTrad Summer Concert Series at the Pavilion, which was sold out and created 3 incredible evenings of wonderful summer music, featuring outstanding banjo/fiddle/vocalist duo Hannah Naiman and Nathan Smith; Maggie and Cassie, a scintillating sibling duo from Cape Breton; and the hot Argentinian Tango/Chamber ensemble Payadora.
• Summer workshop programs in painting, paper sculpture, blacksmithing, basket making, Argentinian folk dancing, and acoustic cafe evenings, as well as a beautiful summer eve community contra/square dance with the Pavilion floor packed to the limit!
• Our Annual Family Camp - the largest ever, with close to 200 participants, instructors/performers, staff, and volunteers. Another incredible week of music, dance, fun, and great food! There was even the construction a cob bread oven! See a slide show video that includes the music and sounds of Camp HERE!
• A fall workshop for the finishing and raising of a timber frame shed that was started at the 2024 Camp. Here's a great little video about this community and skill building 5-day event

The infrastructure upgrades continued throughout the summer and fall, with everything being put in place for the 3-phase electrical upgrade and the HVAC system. This is slated to be completed by the end of the week of November 14th - and this means that for the first time ever there will be HEAT in the Main Hall for the winter...and MORE PROGRAMS! We've got a whole bunch of stuff scheduled this Winter, including a concert series, monthly dances, and a youth arts program January to March, and more! Stay tuned by checking out the website or subscribe to our newsletter at algomatrad.ca

We should also mention that the gardening, tree planting, and grounds work around the new parking lots were ongoing throughout the summer and fall. The new garden produced zucchini, pumpkins, cilantro, lettuce, snap peas, and sunflowers as well as a beautiful sea of cosmos. And volunteer Melanie (a former Board chairperson) and AD Julie got started on a Forest Workshop Zone for future woodland workshops. By the way, the 10,000 trees we've planted since 2018 are really started to grow...some are taller than Julie!!!

Talk soon! Please watch for that fundraiser campaign launch and spread the news!