Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
WINNIPEG FOLK FESTIVAL 50th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Government House
Thursday, September 25, 2025
(please check against delivery)
Volunteers, folkies, just plain folks – welcome to Government House for this celebration of half a century of creating community through music.
As Lieutenant Governor, I acknowledge that this musical celebration of the banjo and the guitar is held on the land of the drum and the fiddle: on Treaty One land and on the homeland of the Red River Metis.
Manitoba is located on the treaty territories and ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota, and Dene nations and the homeland of the Red River Métis and on northern lands that were and are the ancestral lands of the Inuit.
As Manitobans, we are committed to opportunity and dignity for all people, and to working in partnership with First Nations, Metis and Inuit people in the spirit of truth, reconciliation and collaboration, and celebrating all aspects of our province’s cultures.
Manitobans have for many years been proud of their province’s cultural diversity, strong and caring communities, and passion for art and creativity in all forms.
This 50th anniversary celebration is an opportunity acknowledge an organization and a group of volunteers who exemplify all of those virtues.
The story of the Winnipeg Folk Festival is an inspiring tale of people with a passion coming together to create something that turned out to be bigger than they could have dreamed.
It’s a story of volunteer work, of creative problem-solving, of risk-taking, and of the wonderful alchemy that happens when a dreamers and builders comes together. It is truly a story of vision becoming a reality.
Over the last fifty years, as the Winnipeg Folk Festival has evolved, it has simultaneously remained true to its original vision, while embracing increasingly diverse musical expression. It has kept faith with long-time folk music lovers while attracting new generations. There are many here who were the original folkies, who come with young children and now their grandchildren are bringing them.
Each summer, a prairie Brigadoon pops up as the third largest city in Manitoba. That remarkable transformation of fields and forests into a musical community is the work of 2,500 volunteers – and especially the long-serving volunteer co-ordinators we will recognize today.
From that first weekend in 1975 to today, from the first load-in to long after the final note of The Mary Ellen Carter, the staff, volunteers and performers at the Winnipeg Folk Festival make Manitoba a healthier, better, more harmonious place.
To all those who have made that possible, thank you. May your days ahead not just be happy; may they be Folk Fest Happy.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich. Shalom to all.
