By Dan Walton
The free-spirited lifestyles of seasonal workers were warmly embraced during the annual pickers’ picnic at Lion’s Park last Friday.
Ana Aerrero, a 24-year-old from Spain, was seen enjoying the event by spinning and twirling to the live French bands that were playing.
“I’m always in a dancing mood – I love music, like anything,” she said. “I’ve been here for a week, for now I am just looking at it, and I’m actually really happy.”
Aerrero heard about the South Okanagan from a friend back home, and the two of them are working in Canada together.
“The picnic is really nice, really kind. It’s in the park, music, food – what more can you ask for?”
French Canadian Keehan Toitot-Cadieux, 19, was another seasonal worker enjoying the event, but he was more aware of the division between seasonal workers and the rest of Oliver. With low wages, it can be challenging for them to find a comfortable place to lodge, while ‘no parking’ signs and certain laws against camping seem to be targeted at them, he said.
“There’s only like Crown land, live in the bush or stay in our cars,” Toitot-Cadieux said.
But pickers are a crucial part of the local economy, he said, and although they came to the South Okanagan to have fun, “We work to have the money to have fun.”
Working and camping with hundreds of other young people for a summer is a lifestyle that “old people or people who don’t have the same concept of life as us” struggle to appreciate, he said.
Toitot-Cadieux was also at last year’s picker picnic, which was the inaugural event. He said this year’s event was organized even better having brought more food.
“There was so much people too last year. Very hard to feed that much people,” he said.
“But this is really nice actually.”
Pickers don’t want to be seen as an annoyance, Toitot-Cadieux said, and most of them try to live as cordially as possible.
“We’re here to work, have fun and learn. We’re still young.”
The picnic was held on the same day as Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, which French Canadians celebrate as a major holiday.
