At a meeting held at Gavan’s Hotel on May 15, the event’s committee decided to cancel this year’s Jamfest as the grounds won’t be in suitable conditions to host a festival of its size, according to one of the event’s main organizers Garry Cummings.

“There’s just too much water,” said Cummings. “There’s about four or five feet of water. There’s no way that we can have it. It’s flooded right out. The grounds wouldn’t be ready. There’s too much to clean up and everything.”

Even if waters do recede by the time the event was scheduled to take place at the end of June, the grounds will still be too wet to hold the event.

Following 2017’s record breaking floods, there were numerous issues relating the ground conditions with several trucks being stuck in the muddy terrain causing numerous safety hazards to people attending and plenty of difficulty taking them out of the ground when the event was over.

“It would be a lot worse this year for sure,” he said. “It’s like a lake down there for God’s sake.”

For Cummings the absence of this year’s Jamfest is a disappointment for the community as it serves as a fundraiser for various local service providers including the Shawville Hospital as well as local churches in need of financial aid for repairs.

“It takes away from the community that’s for sure,” he said. “We had always around 200 to 210 trailers there and it helps out quite a bit for local businesses too.”

While there isn’t a specific number detailing how severe the impact will be, Cummings knows the cancelation of the event will be felt, especially in the group’s pocket book.

“We’re losing money that’s for sure,” he said. “We’re a non-profit organization. We help people out.”

For Cummings, one of the most difficult parts of cancelling the event was calling musicians to notify them that they wouldn’t be performing at this year’s JamFest. However, he knows that he has their support no matter what, especially in times like these. “They’re behind us, you know,” he said. “They understand what it’s like because there’s people worse off than us who lost their homes.”

Cummings also had to give the event’s sponsors their donations back.

“We just go by our sponsorships to put this on,” he said. “We’re going to give [their money] back to them because we can’t keep that money that’s for sure.”

For Mayor Joanne Labadie, the cancelation of this year’s Jam Fest is disappointing but at the end of the day it’s intention is meant for the better of the region.

While it has long been an important cultural event for the Pontiac and a significant contributor to the local economy bolstering activity for local businesses, most notably the Quyon Ferry, she understands that cancelling the event in advance was an important step to keeping the event’s participants and organizers safe while preventing further financial losses.

“It’s an important even for the municipality of Pontiac and for Quyon,” she said. “It’s a great boost to the region, even the ferry gets a lot more traffic, so it’s going to have an impact on the ferry and local businesses in the area. And the residents who enjoy the festival, myself included.”

“It’s unfortunate,” she added. “But, I think the grounds being in the state that they are, I think it was the best decision they could make, cancelling it in advance.”

Cummings intends on bringing the event back next year just like it’s always been with the same amount of excitement and fun as previous editions.

“We’re just going to do the same thing as all the other years we were looking after it,” he said. “Hopefully all our people come back, our trailers. I’m certain they will.”

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