Dina Stephenson, Horsefly Salmon Festival organizer, lends a hand at the Gyotaku art activity for part of the day on Sept. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Salmon dissection at the Horsefly Salmon Festival on Aug. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Logan Kelly-Jalbert catches an invasive tench fish in the Invasive Species Council of BC Play & Protect Mobile trailer. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
The Rivershed Society of BC was at the Horsefly Salmon Festival on Aug. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
The Nature Conservancy of Canada booth at the Horsefly Salmon Festival on Aug. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Williams Lake First Nation elder Ernie Archie, centre, gave a blessing on the shores of the Horsefly River for the Horsefly Salmon Festival on Aug. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Lyle Williams was back at the Horsefly Salmon Festival with his Knotty Furniture. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Livia Seabourne shows off her beautiful gyotaku fish art. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
The Canadian Wildlife Federation had a booth with different prints to identify and a watershed model illustrating different human-made barriers salmon and other fish might face. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Musicians help to entertain visitors to the Horsefly Salmon Festival on Aug. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Potter Cindy Faulkner, right, hosts a booth for selling her pottery as well as making clay salmon. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Martin Kruus helps visitors at his Stream to Sea booth put the watershed model back together. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Christina Mary of the Willow Grove Inn in Horsefly, was displaying her beautiful rivershed willow panel at her booth, where she helped visitors make willow beads. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
The gyotaku print making booth has a row of completed prints hanging to dry as the next print-makers prepare to paint. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Elske Stadey, from left, Inez Stadey, Tayden Murphy, and Oskar Tillotson, have fun playing with the watershed model at the Streams to Sea table. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Laylah Fariad, the Cariboo WildSafeBC coordinator, at the Salmon Festival in Horsefly on Sept. 9, 2023. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Ernie Archie, of Williams Lake First Nation, has been doing the salmon blessing ceremony at the Salmon Festival for many years. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Matok Renchen paints a salmon as part of the gyotaku print making, an ancient Japanese art form. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Matok Renchen paints a salmon as part of the gyotaku print making, an ancient Japanese art form. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)
Nina Moore, left and Matok Renchen paint a salmon as part of the gyotaku print making, an ancient Japanese art form. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)Attendees of the Horsefly River Salmon Festival were treated to a beautiful day on the shores of the salmon-bearing river for day one of the annual event, Saturday, Sept. 9.
There was fun for all ages on the banks of the Horsefly, with activities, including a scavenger hunt to complete across the event. All kinds of booths were tucked into the trees, and visitors could stop and enjoy live music thanks to a number of different performers throughout the day.
Many of the information tables hosted their own activities for festival-goers.
The Willow Grove Inn’s Christina Mary helped people make willow beads and pens you could use to draw with ink made from hollyhock flowers.
One Hundred Mile House potter Cindy Faulkner of Sun Spirit Studio had clay salmon for people to make and hang in the trees as an offering or to take home.
Tolko had a booth where they gave away trees for planting and had plant pots for painting visitors could keep.
Educators with the Streams to Sea program by Fisheries and Oceans Canada had tables, one where a salmon was being dissected to show the animal’s anatomy and life cycle and a table with a model watershed to show how the water moves through a landscape and system and some invertebrates which provide food for other species like salmon.
The Invasive Species Council of B.C. had their interactive trailer on hand, helping educate people about the different invasive species, both plants and animals, and the risks they pose to local ecosystems.
Other booths included the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Wild Safe BC, Quesnel River Research Centre, Rivershed Society of BC, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
The traditional Japanese art of gyotaku fish printing returned, an annual favourite, providing an opportunity to make beautiful prints of fish with paint onto cloth for visitors to take home with them.
Elder Ernie Archie of Williams Lake First Nature provided a salmon blessing ceremony as well.
The event ran again Sunday, Sept. 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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