This weekend kicks off Arts in the Park, the 50th anniversary of Beaumont Provincial Park - it also fits into this year's celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the BC Parks organization.
"It is a big anniversary this weekend for the park," said Don Rudland, one of the key organizers of the Arts In the Park event.
He also has a personal connection to the place.
"My family knew old Capt. Beaumont. He tried to sell Beaumont Park to my dad in the '40s. He wanted $700 lump sum or $100 a year for the rest of his life. He was quite an old man at the time, but dad wasn't sure, he didn't make it happen, and he always regretted it.
"That place has a huge history."
An array of visual artists will take part in the event, which happens Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is free of charge, with suggestions to bring a lunch, lawn chair and weather-appropriate clothing.
The performers include Willowvale, Sound of the North, the Nadleh Traditional Dancers, Jerusha Turgeon, Karen Cruise, Danni Fehr and Friends, and the headliners are former Michael Buble bandleader (now a solo recording artist) Bryant Olender and Juno-nominated singer-songwriter Marcel Gagnon (with Justin Frey and Don McLelland).
BC Parks has been "terrific to deal with," said Rudland, as was the Nechako Community Arts Council.
"They have really helped us out," he said.
Simon Fraser spent many of his first established days at what today is called Beaumont Park on the shores of what today is the lake bearing his name. The communities of Fraser Lake and Fort Fraser bookend this provincial park.
It was there more than 200 years ago where Fraser staged much of the first trade and exploration the province ever had with Euro-centric Canada (his Fort St. James was the only one predating it in what is now British Columbia).
Fraser located the spot in September, 1806 on a mission from his original base on Stuart Lake (Fort St. James) when the harsh winter diminished their food supplies and the Hudson Bay Company man had to venture out for food supplies.
He maintained it for years as a pivotal outpost, chosen for its strategic spot on the lake and on long established aboriginal travel paths.
Among the Hudson Bay Company personnel with Fraser on that first sojourn into what was then called New Caledonia was fort manager John Stuart and food acquisition manager Daniel Williams Harmon (now known as the godfather of the region's agriculture industry.
In 1815, Harmon wrote: "we have surrounded a piece of ground with palisades, for a garden, in which we have planted a few potatoes, sowed onion, carrot, beet and parsnip seeds, and a little barley. I have, also, planted a very little Indian corn, without the expectation that it will come to maturity..."
This was the site of today's Beaumont Park.
The land itself came into the ownership of Vancouver Island maritime legend Capt. Ernest Godfrey Beaumont (1926-1962) who donated it to the provincial government for the purpose of establishing it as a park (he donated two others from near his home on Discovery Island).
This was accomplished on July 13, 1962 - and this weekend kicks off the 50th year of this historic event.
