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Enduring community spirit at Innisfail Lantern & Light Festival

With early weather gloom threatening the fourth annual event, attendees and organizers ultimately embraced plenty of brilliant light to seize a creative galactic journey

INNISFAIL – As the welcome sun dropped under the trees at Centennial Park, a score of hanging lanterns and light installations began to glow.

And with it were scores of guests at the 4th annual Innisfail Lantern & Light Festival who excitedly smiled and walked briskly from one tree to another where hanging lanterns seized the fading sunlight to begin their kaleidoscopic bursts.

The moment was also a huge relief.

The early hours before that start of the 4th annual Innisfail Lantern & Light Festival on Aug. 16 at Centennial park from 3 to 11 p.m. were concerning for event organizers.

It had been grey and cloudy in the morning and into the afternoon, but Mother Nature came through with brilliant light of its own by mid-afternoon, and the annual event, which attracted well over 100 enthusiastic attendees, went on and ended as another success.

“I had looked up the weather and it said rain at three. It looks like it's going to be really nice,” said 78-year-old volunteer Marian Breeze. “When all the lanterns are lit up, it's magical. It really is.”

“It does bring all ages together, children and adults,” she added. “It really is worth coming to.”

This year’s festival next to Napoleon Lake had plenty of spirited activities to keep its guests entertained, and awestruck.

After all, the theme was Galactic Journey, a trip through space and time. 

There were many space-themed lanterns created, including a quarter moon and even one resembling the planet Jupiter.

“Yes, teach them (children) a little bit about space and hope maybe one day that generation will be headed off to Mars, right?’’ noted new Innisfailian Phil Wierzbicki, who brought his family to the festival for the first time. “We just love Innisfail for all the family-friendly activities they host.

“This is definitely our favourite town, just because of the community spirit here.”

There was lantern decorating from 4 to 7 p.m., a market, free barbecue, and WALL-E, a 2008 animated romantic science fiction film played outdoors on a 16-foot-wide outdoor blow-up screen.

And at dusk the glow began from lanterns and light installations, which was later  followed by a laser light show and plenty of fog for kids to play in.

But mostly it was the sense of community from beginning to end.

“There is such a huge community involvement for this,” said volunteer Jennifer Matichuk, who was also involved in a lantern workshop prior to the festival. “There was nothing but positive comments the whole time they were doing it.

“Everybody thinks it's a great idea,” she said of the festival. “They love the fact that it comes every year, and they get to use their creativity.”

Although everyone involved with the event worked hard to ensure all its pieces came to together, lead organizer Dale Dunham said there was a casual and relaxing vibe.

“Yes, it is relaxed.  People are smiling, the kids are having fun, and excited about the movie,” said Dunham, noting the event continues to add new elements as the festival is no longer just about lanterns, but light itself in various other forms.

“We started last year to move away from just lanterns into light installations,” said Dunham. “It wasn't necessarily like a paper globe or anything like that. It was more structures, ideas about what you can do with light.

“No fireworks, but just lights and how lights can play within the space we're in, in the forest, in the trees and within.”

And the light in whatever form is always creating awestruck smiles, a sense of wonder for everyone, no matter what the age.

 

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