Over the weekend, the Chutes Coulonge Park in Mansfield-etPontefract hosted its second annual Lumberjack Festival.
The weekend kicked off with a comedy night at Cinema Lyn headlined by Derek Seguin. Organizer Brittany Morin said that they wanted to offer the community something interesting.
“The park’s in a development phase so we are looking to find creative ways of doing fundraisers but also that are light and nice for the community to enjoy that are different from other things that are happening,” she said. “I found a comedian through shows I’ve been to that was willing to come down and do a fundraiser show for the benefit of the park.”
The following day at the Chutes property there were a variety of activities, including several shows by the Great Canadian Lumberjacks, live music and a log race down the falls.
“Last year we decided to have a fall event. We knew that other partner organizations had Halloween covered and we thought why not lean into the history of the park and do a lumberjack day festival,” Morin said. “It was just a natural fit, easy to pull together. The community seems to love it.”
She said that the park is looking to develop its infrastructure to expand its offerings to more seasons.
“So the immediate projects we’re fundraising for now are the fall trail project, we’re going to build on our fall trail network and we’re going to do more interpretation of our flora and fauna, and we’re also going to expand winter activities,” she said.
Morin added that they are currently adding a new sanitation building that will feature six bathrooms, a family bathroom and accessible showers.
“The park is growing so much that the two bathrooms we have on site from the original days of the park are just not enough to sustain the flow of visitors,“ she said.
Morin thanked the numerous sponsors that made the event possible.
