Derek Neary
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Sep 17/99) - It was a cornucopia of produce, a collection of crafts and an assortment of baked goods all rolled into one.

Fort Simpson's Fall Fair was held at the arena on Saturday. With a greater number of vendors and more events than last year, when the fair made its return after 20 years of dormancy.

Although attendance may have been down a little bit from last year, that can be chalked up to coinciding events such as the Metis Assembly, an education conference and a golf tournament, noted Hilda Antoine, chair of the Community Beautification Committee, which sponsored the event.

This year, the Fort Simpson Army Cadets held a turkey shoot as a fund-raiser. A mini-carnival was also held in conjunction with the fair. Antoine deemed the carnival another success, but she has hopes of seeing it expand even further.

"Now that people from other communities are aware, they'll hopefully come out and participate by submitting exhibits for next year," said Antoine. "All in all, I was very happy. I think more people are becoming aware of it and it's something to look forward to."

The students at Louie Norwegian school in Jean Marie River could be counted among those who eagerly participate in the fair, according to teacher-principal Donna Dahm.

"One of the entries they really enjoyed working on was the scarecrow. We did Suzie the scarecrow...in fact, she's still sitting in our class because we couldn't let her go quite yet," Dahm said. "The kids love for me to come back with all their things with the ribbons on."

The students also relish is their annual quilt-making project. Each student makes a square, and the quilt, which won the first-place ribbon this year, is presented to an elder in the community at the school's year-end awards ceremony.

Among the vendors, Melaw Childcare Centre had what seemed like a never-ending supply of baked goods that some parents had laboured over.

"The parents were a big help actually," said Nicole Barrington, manager of the day care. "We had a cake-walk as well ... but otherwise we sold everything. I thought it was great. I was really impressed. It's nice to have the whole community come together like that."

The day care's scarecrow came in first among the group entries. In the individual category, Terry Jaffray was one of the winners with "Petunia" the scarecrow. Although Petunia took home the red ribbon, it took some adjustments to meet the standards. The pattern the Jaffrays followed from a magazine was intended for an eight-foot scarecrow, two feet taller than the maximum height for the Fall Fair entries.

"We also had to adjust the arms because you can't get shirts made for a guy that's five-foot-ten on six-foot-long arms," she laughed.

Petunia now has a spot reserved on the Jaffray's front porch.