Securing the Future of AlgomaTrad Heritage Arts

The Very Good News is that our permit for the new septic system, which, as you can imagine, is foundational to the development of the AlgomaTrad Centre, has been approved. Tenders for this project are going out the second week of July and we hope to have this major project completed in the fall! Thanks go to our Artistic Directors for pushing hard to make sure this permit was issued as soon as possible and to the office the Algoma MPP Bill Rosenberg for their aid in making sure this application had the necessary political pressure to get it approved in a timely manner!

Securing the permit of the new septic system means we can now forge ahead with permit applications for the building of Dan's Hall and the shower house! Our Securing the Future campaign can kick into high gear as we can now make concrete plans for the construction of these long-planned structures, We are particularly excited about the Dan's Hall construction project which will feature an 11-day Community Build of the timber frame structure under the auspices of the Timber Framers Guild of North America. If all goes to plan, this will be a major feature of our Summer 2027 event calendar.

In the meantime, we haven't been idle! With the help of our wonderful volunteers, two 100-foot gardens have been planted with vegetables and flowers - beautiful radishes are already being harvested and we hope to have a lot of things ready for the annual Family Camp in August. Talking about the Camp, in its 23rd year, we sold out in 36 hours, a new record! With the completion of Dan's Hall and the shower house this year, we will hopefully be planning many more camps and workshops in 2027!

As well, 3500 new trees were planted this spring in the seeps and ravines of the property, made possible through the 50 Million Tree program and Forest Ontario. This brings the number of new trees planted on the 50-acre site to close to 14,000!! An investment in our future to be sure!

Work on getting the Main Hall tightened up for next winter, with more insulation, eavestroughing and water catchment, and structural improvemets, are planned for this summer and fall, including a new woodern floor for the assembly hall and finishing the floor treatment and trim on the second floor.

Programming-wise, we have had a super busy winter/spring calendar including: monthly dances with 100 or more people of all-ages at each dance; the continuation and wrap of our winter concert series, featuring amazing singer-songwriters Campbell Woods and Abigail Lapelle; a French Canadian maple sugar shack brunch, concert, and dance with over 100 in attendance and featuring Quebecois, Cajun, and Northern Ontario traditional musicians and dancers; a beautiful and successful 8-week youth arts program for 22 lucky youths and 4 guest artists who lead workshops in songwriting, art creation, crankie-making, indigenous art and culture, bookmaking, food preparation; our annual trivia night fundraiser; and more!

This summer, aside from the annual Camp, we have planned several heritage craft workshops, weekly song circles and trad music sessions, and several concerts at the beautiful timber frame Pavilion: on July 15 with the Andrew Collins Trio, featuring Andrew's mandolin wizardry with 2 of the finest musician's in the Canadian bluegrass world, ;and on July 29 with Canadian and US champion fiddler Shane Cook and his band.

We'll be cranking up this campaign now, so watch for news about that and please let your friends know!

Links:

• Upcoming Events & Programs at AlgomaTrad