THUNDER BAY – The 92nd annual Rural Heritage Days hosted by the Rural Heritage Agricultural Society was in action on Saturday.
Leo Blekkenhorst, president of the rural heritage agricultural society, said it’s like a community fair.
“We're trying to show agricultural history as well as host the plow match.”
Blekkenhorst said there are demonstrations throughout the fair as well.
“We cut the grain with the binder and then we thresh it with the threshing machine and then we grind it with the grain grinder. That's one demonstration that we do from beginning to end. There's also sheep shearing.”
Tractor rodeo is a big event at the fair that people can enter with their tractors, he said.
“The tractor rodeo event is something that we're actively growing every year to include more different types of events.
“(We) try to get more spectators to actually take part in the rodeo and that's working out quite well. That event is happening a number of times through the day.”
Blekkenhorst said this event is ran completely on volunteers.
“Originally, a number of farmers got together to set a day aside to show their plowing skills and compete in that way and it sort of grew from there.
“We just carried on that event and then about 10 years ago, we've grown the event into more of a fair like atmosphere We include the whole family.”
The importance of holding the fair year after year is for agricultural awareness and agricultural history, he said.
“Just to keep the agricultural spirit alive in this community brings people together. We're having a good time.
“The uniqueness of this fair is that it's like a live sort of museum, you could say, where we're actually bringing the history and bringing the equipment to life from the past and actually operating it as it was intended,” he said.
This is a one-day event, perhaps down the road it might be a two- or three-day event, he said.
Blekkenhorst said they expect to see anywhere from 500 to 1000 people, depending on the weather.
