Marianne Garrah | Special to the 51暗网
Imagine for a moment that it鈥檚 1975, and you find yourself living in a cabin in the Canadian Rockies with two young children.
You and your friend are artists and decide to run a Christmas Fair. There is no internet. There is no Facebook or Canva or photoshop. Your phone is a 鈥榝orestry line鈥� 鈥� the kind you wind up. That is exactly what Rita Hindle used to create what is now in its 47th year in Jasper. The annual Jasper Christmas Market was started by Rita and her friend Bette Weir with four tables in the Whistler Inn, and she ran it for 38 years.
By year eight, it had grown to over 40 tables of handmade wares and moved on to the Activity Centre, fondly known at that time as the RecPlex. Artists like Barb Brooks, Linda Stinson, Carol Ross, Bette Weir, Ray Syrja and many others made up the Jasper Valley Artisans. The fair made enough money that year to purchase new chairs for the centre.
By the mid 鈥�80s, the Jasper Christmas Fair was incorporated into a circuit, which meant fair vendors could travel between B.C. and Saskatchewan, with Jasper鈥檚 fair being one of their stops. This was great as the mid 鈥�80s also saw a lot of new homes being built in Jasper that needed things not necessarily available locally.
I spent a morning with Rita in October to make sure I didn鈥檛 miss something and that the fair would have the same desirable appeal she had nurtured so well. This rare shopping experience brings in shoppers from Grande Cache through to Valemount. She told us to be sure to include any business located close to the market 鈥� which we did this year too 鈥� Glenda the Great is baking up a storm as you read this!
What is it about 鈥溾�榟andmade鈥� that we love so much? Maybe it鈥檚 because each authentic piece comes with its own story. Not unlike us鈥hanks Rita.
The Christmas Craft Fair will take place Sunday, Nov. 20 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Jasper Activity Centre.
