Frelighsburg is getting set to host Festi’Bois 2022 over Labor Day weekend.
Launched in 2019, and organized under le Réseau foresterie Frelighsburg and Vitalité Frelighsburg, Festi’Bois provides a platform for artisans that transform wood and professionals that work with forests to show off their craft. Having attracted over 2,000 visitors last year, Festi’Bois will have tons of activities on site to educate the public on the important role that forests play in our daily lives.
“It’s unique and we didn’t know if it would work. We just wanted to let people know about the forest, how to take care of a forest, the people that work with forests that are very important, and the people that do very beautiful things with wood in Quebec, that thing we underestimate,” said Denise Bélanger, president of the organizing committee for Fest’Bois 2022.
Bélanger said that as an organizer, she began to learn a lot from the festival and that people will be able to discover a variety of art forms made by local artists and artists from Montreal.
“We try to vary the work of the artisans if we can. Myself, I discovered a lot of things about what people do with wood. We had somebody that makes guitars and that has been exploring for the last 25 years the sound with Indigenous wood,” mentioned Bélanger. “We want artists that work 20 per cent or less with exotic wood, we want to talk about our Indigenous wood and what we can do with it.”
Apart from the artistan kiosques that will be on site, two conferences will be held and there will be demonstrations. One demonstration will be provided by Noble Element in Cowansville, a business that uses a traditional method to build wooden structures.
“We are going to have one conference with cardiologist Michel White from the Institut Cardiologie Montréal. We are going to have that conference in the forest. (…) It’s to talk about all of the benefits that forests can bring to our health, it can be mental health or physical health,” said Bélanger. “We are going to have a conference on Saturday given by a research professor Pierre Drapeau of UQAM. He has been working on the ecology of old forests.”
Festival attendees will have the chance to witness the work of an arborist, who play an important role in keeping the region’s forest healthy and secure, amongst other activities for families to enjoy.
“The new thing that we are going to have, we want to attract children. So, we created a puppet show and it’s going to be the story of a tree. The puppet will be made out of wood and it’s all evolving around wood. After the puppet show, (…) there will be a treasure hunt to discover the tree species in the arboretum (located beside the elementary school in Frelighsburg),” explained Bélanger.
With the support of local groups, Bélanger hopes that the Fest’Bois 2022 will be an eye opener for attendees.
“They’re going to discover why maple trees are so important and the hole that is created by old branches that fall in the ground, who is nesting in those holes? Discover things that we don’t see actually or that we don’t know. I’d like that people get a sense of the importance and the beauty of our territory and our forests,” noted Bélanger.
For more information and for the full Fest’Bois 2022 program.
Listen to the full interview below: