By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle 

The inaugural All Hallows Festival sparkled with an undeniable energy that kept the substantial crowd enthralled for the day-long event last Sunday.

Young and old, from singles to families were out on a brisk but beautiful Sunday for the event with many breaking out their  halloween costumes a day early.

Demonstrating yet again that there is always room for new ideas and new festivals in Osoyoos, the All Hallows event followed a similar game plan as the successful Pride Arts Festival held in September.

Witches on the Water

The Witches on the Water are a brave and dedicated lot. Their notorious antics ushered in the All Hallows concept in Osoyoos.
Don Urquhart photo

The common thread between these two events is the irrepressible Wina Poliquin and her Wide Arts National Association (WANA) whose impassioned aim is to inject more arts of all shapes, forms and colours into the local community. Poliquin was aided in this venture by All Hallows co-founder Meagan Young-Bibby of Lake Village Bakery.

Non-stop entertainment, which kicked off with a chilly Witches on the Water paddle to Gyro beach, included an aerial arts show, dance performances, a pet parade, musical performers including Osoyoos’ own clarion songbird Kansas Lee, opera singing and the infectious rhythms of Blackberry Wood.

And not forgetting belly dancing, a fire show by Vancouver Island-based Ignisia Circus and of course a Witchy Flashmob. A wide range of vendors, food trucks and a specially brewed witch’s beer fabulously rounded out the event.

“I’m very happy with the event,” enthused Poliquin energetically defying any trace of weariness despite being near the end of a long day. “All the performers really delivered very nicely beyond my expectations,” she added.

All Hallows Fest

A lot of witchery and other goings-on in Osoyoos make the town’s All Hallows Festival a popular event for all manner of characters.
Don Urquhart photo

“I really wanted to see all the elements going on and we even had some witches on the water and we’ve got the air witches of course with the aerial and we got our land dance that was really popular and then the fire performance was just mind blowing!”

When asked if Osoyoos would be seeing the event again next year, Poliquin replied with a grin: “oh yeah, you will!” She added: “I’m really looking forward to doing it again and just expanding it for my community.”

One of many crowd pleasers, the fire performance in the early evening drew an enthusiastic crowd for the flaming spectacular.

“We’re super stoked to be back out here doing what we love, mesmerizing people,” said Denyse Dansereau, Artistic Director at Ignisia Circus. 

She says there’s “something about fire” that strikes a chord in both the audience and the performers. “It’s the adrenaline rush and learning to work with the fire. It’s the biggest rush you can ever feel,” she says, adding that the performers and fire “become one”.

Explaining the uniqueness of performing with fire Dansereau says: “It’s not an inanimate object you’re dancing with. You’re not always leading, sometimes the fire is leading you because fire is this untamed element, it’s a dance between both of us at the same time where we are reacting to the element and it’s reacting to us.”

The troop is based out of Cumberland on Vancouver Island and  performs all over the island and southern BC.

And the story wouldn’t be complete without talking about the specially brewed beer for the event, another tasty collaboration between North Basin Brewing’s Kody Rosentreter and Firehouse Brewing Company’s Sid Ruhland.

Ruhland said the idea for the special “Witch’s brew” came up in conversation with Poliquin and Young-Bibby. “So we did a little sit down with a bunch of herbs because a gruit is kind of an ancient style of beer that is brewed with herbs for the bittering and flavouring.”

Ruhland notes that hops only became the primary bittering agent a couple hundred years ago but before that brewers used whatever herbs they preferred in their locality.

“So the ones we ended up going with were sweet gale, juniper berry, a little bit of wormwood and mugwort, all of which we thought sounded very witchy for a witch’s brew and the All Hallows Festival,” Ruhland laughs.

A bit of hops was included simply because hops are reliable and predictable but primarily the beer relies on the sweet gale and juniper berries. It’s a balance between the malt and the herbs, he explains.

“The malt is providing a caramel sweetness and a bit of spiciness even, from the rye – there is caramelized barley, wheat and rye in there – so nice and sweet, malty and rich.”

But he adds that the herbs are balancing the sweetness with a bit of bitterness and the juniper berries are adding a bit of fruit-like character to it as well. “It reminds me very much of the kind of spices you would run into around this time of year with pumpkin pie, etc,” he adds.