Fairground Fanciers
The host of volunteers needed for the Saanich Fall Fair are "the grease that keep the wheels running."

Katherine Dedyna
Times Colonist - Sunday, August 31, 2003

From best boiled potatoes to champion bulls, the Saanich Fair wouldn’t be what it is today – the oldest continuous agricultural fair in Western Canada – without more than 1,000 volunteers to make it happen.

Not everyone would choose to spend their long weekend emptying fairground garbage cans, standing by the counted cross-stitch and cucumber displays or making sure there’s clean sawdust in the poultry cages.

But there’s pretty well a niche for everyone at the 136th annual event, which starts on Saturday at 8 a.m. and goes until Monday at the fairground on Stelly’s Cross Road.

Thanks to the 4-H kids, who clean up big-time, manure duty is pretty well covered.

Everyone from diehard contributors for several decades to newcomers showing up for just a few hours, local residents, urbanites with rural roots and fairground employees make it a Labour Day tradition to get countrified by helping out in 27 categories from swine to wine.

"They’re the grease that keep the wheels running,” says fair co-chairwoman Clara Knight, who has been putting in 14-hour days herself.

Volunteers weigh the largest pumpkin, measure the tallest sunflower, ensure the ostrich eggs are well protected and demonstrate how a beehive works.

Most of them bring related skills to the job. "Otherwise we have to train them on the spot,” says Knight.

"A lot of the volunteers are the older people’s kids,” adds Pat Stanley, who is organizing entries to non-livestock categories and has donated her time for at least 60 years. Her son Michael is on the board of the fair.

Pat Kelly is a volunteer’s volunteer.

Winner of the Volunteer of the Year award last year at the B.C. Fairs Convention, he has been volunteering a couple of days a week for the last 21 years, doing carpentry and whatever needs doing. That works out to 2,000 days.

"It’s just something I like doing and they can always use the help,” says the retired ship’s radio operator, who lived on Blenkinsop Road for 37 years and grew plenty of vegetables and flowers in his day.

This weekend, along with 35 other volunteers, he’s attending to the Looking Back in Time display, which features clothing from pioneer days, his father’s saws and axes from the 1920s and small mechanical tractors, among other artifacts.

This year’s theme is A Bloomin’ Good Show and nearly a dozen local nurseries are on hand to beautify the grounds. But year-round, many volunteers, some of them in their 80s and 90s, tend the flower boxes and flower beds on the grounds.

"Volunteers are not a fly-in-the-pie thing at the Saanich fair. They have faithfully done this for years and years,” Knight says.

"You do it because you love it,” explains Sylvia Hutt, one of the flower ladies who first began volunteering in 1953. It takes forever to prepare and then it’s gone but "every bit of it’s a pleasure,” she says. Not many could top David Anderson – no, not the Victoria MP – but the one who for the last 20 years, prior to major surgery, acted as "chief garbologist," supervising volunteers and paid teenagers who kept the grounds clean.

The fairgrounds at 1528 Stelly’s Cross Rd. open at 8 a.m. Saturday and close at 11:30 p.m. Labour Day. Along with the midway, where else can you see a BMX Stunt Show, a rooster crowing contest, up-to-date tatting, the Highland fling, the best begonia and a Canadian first, a McHale packager that bundles hay into small bundles instead of large bales?

The fair will showcase everything from the heaviest beet to weed collections.

There will be a milking parlour demonstration, master gardeners and entertainment from the Carsons, Soul Station, Fiddlemania, the Timebenders and Paul Hann. Admission is $8 Saturday/Sunday for adults, $7 Monday; $5 Saturday/Sunday for youth and seniors, $4 Monday and kids six and under free. All-you-can-ride midway day for $20 is Monday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

This year’s volunteer quotient is pretty well full, so if you feel the need to lend a hand, call the North & South Saanich Agricultural Society in October and sign up for next year. For more information, call 652-3314.

The fair opens at 8 a.m. Saturday and close at 11:30 p.m. Labour Day. The grounds are located at 1528 Stelly’s Cross Rd.

Reproduced with permission from the Times Colonist (Victoria)
© Copyright 2004 Times Colonist (Victoria)