Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Friday, August 17, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Larry Adamson and some like-minded people envisioned an annual celebration of the arts in the city, but despite their best efforts, the plan was cut short.

Artists unveil the fiberglass ravens at last year's Yellowknife Arts Festival. From left are Angela Gzowski, John Schnell, Barb Round, Chris Brown, Christine Rudolph, Charissa Alain and Erica Silzer. - NNSL file photo

The Yellowknife Arts Festival Society, which produced its first and only festival last summer, received their certificate of dissolution this month.

"We were unable to get enough organizers to put it on and also we were unable to get enough funding to do it," said Adamson, the society's former president.

Interest in the festival dwindled throughout the past year.

Adamson said that at their first annual general meeting, there were 35-40 people present, but only four people showed up to the last meeting.

"We couldn't attract a good person to be president," he said, adding he was unable to take on the role for a second year. "Myself and the previous board members decided it was too difficult to get people involved."

But Adamson said the lack of interest was only half the story.

The other half was a serious lack of funding.

He said the festival society had originally hoped for a budget of about $200,000, but ended up with a budget of only about one tenth of that.

The city pitched in with $10,000, $7,000 was raised at a silent auction, and smaller amounts came from elsewhere.

"We still put on a pretty good little festival," he said. "We really wanted to grow in the second year, but we'd only have enough money to put on a small festival again."

Adamson said it's possible that it is more difficult to get funding in a larger centre like Yellowknife than it is for a festival society such as the Great Northern Arts Festival Society which is based in Inuvik.

"We are more developed and perhaps it's expected that things will happen on their own here," he said.

More funding would have allowed the festival society to rent a venue for artists to work in, much like at the Great Northern Arts Festival.

It would have also allowed the society to hire staff and be less dependent on volunteers.

Adamson said he believes there is room for more arts festivals in Northwest Territories, and thinks Yellowknife could really use one.

"It's almost criminal that we don't have such a thing in Yellowknife - such a wonderful city and such a wide variety of things for visitors and residents to enjoy, especially in the field of fine arts and crafts," he said.

"We have some superb artists here in Yellowknife, I'd say over a hundred... but nobody knows about them. A festival can do that and bring them to the public's attention."

Adamson, who works for Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI) in the tourism and parks division, sees the idea of the Yellowknife Arts Festival as a way to attract people to the area.

"Tourism and the arts and crafts go hand in hand. The reason a lot of people come North is for the arts and culture... and so I felt that it would draw people to the territories if we had another big festival," he said.

The former society president will retire from his job at ITI in a few weeks. While he has no immediate plans to bring the society back to life, he said he hopes that it can be revived someday.