Hay River was abuzz with activity from July 2-7 as the community's popular Hay Days Festival returned for the first time in five years.
"It is really exciting," event coordinator April Glaicar said midway through the week. "People are happy to have the festival again. We're hearing from people over and over and over again that they're happy to see us return.
"We try to collaborate and get partnerships within community groups and organizations so that the community feels that this is our festival, and we hear people refer to it as 'our festival.' That's so important."
The opening days of the occasion were marked by workshops and other events, such as an art show by youth in Hay River. The first musical performances occurred the night of July 3.
Once the music got underway, it was "full steam ahead" for the rest of the week, with a long list of workshops, children's events, concerts, and art-related activities on the schedule, Glaicar noted.
That includes the festival's "corporate art attack" — one of Glaicar's favourite recurring events.
"We have six teams — usually six different business teams with four individuals per team on them," she said of the corporate art attack. "They have no idea what they're going to be getting themselves into.
"They show up right at 12 p.m. It's a one-hour event with a time limit. They're all given the same box or pile of art supplies... and they have one hour to produce an art project. Then the winning team takes home free entry into next year's [corporate art] attack, and they get to keep the trophy for a year in their place of business."
The winning team in each year's art attack also receives tickets to the festival's Saturday Shaker, an evening of food, drinks and music that serves as something as a grand finale for the event.
"It's a licensed event at the Aurora Ford Arena ice surface," Glaicar said of the shaker, which is one of the few events on the Hay Days schedule that isn't free to attend. "We have four great Northern bands performing music, starting right at 8 p.m. and going right through until 2 a.m.
"We also have food at that event. The chef from the Ptarmigan Inn has put together a wonderful summer party menu. It's not your typical kind of concert food, like burgers and fries. We've got kebabs and sushi and sliders and salads and charcuterie — just really delicious stuff."
As a week-long event consisting of dozens of smaller events, Hay Days take a considerable amount of time to organize. Planning typically spans at least eight or nine months of the year, according to Glaicar.
It is well worth the effort, she said, as the festival is important to the community — particularly after a five-year hiatus due to factors like the pandemic and local crises.
"It's good that we didn't let Covid and floods and fires knock us down completely," she said. "We're up, and we're rebuilding.
"There's no reason we shouldn't be [back next year]."