Tofield’s Snow Goose Festival to make a comeback
After 17 years, one of Tofield’s popular events, the Snow Goose Festival is set to make a comeback in April this year.
“A festival like this is important because it’s an opportunity especially for the urban public, but even the country folks to learn more about wildlife, to be introduced to it,” said Geoff Holroyd, one of the main initiators and organizers of the event and Chair of the Beaverhill Bird Observatory (BBO). “As we become more of a technological society, we become disconnected from nature, but nature has really a beneficial impact on our health; we joke at the BBO that people should come out and get a dose of Vitamin N!
“A lot of people don’t know how to do that anymore. They don’t realize that tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of water fowl are flying through Beaver County on their way to the Arctic nesting site, coming from their wintering grounds in the United States and Mexico, and they are there to be seen.”
Holroyd’s hope is by taking people out on buses, having expert guides on those buses to tell them about the water fowl they’re seeing, identify them – and it won’t be just geese but lots of water fowl that are migrating at the time – he can pique their interest in wildlife and nature.
“There was a lady who came up from Arizona in the 1990s because she had heard about the festival, but she actually came here by bus, and spent all those hours because she wanted to see the spectacle that was right here in our backyard,” narrated Holroyd. “Another couple that I met in November, first got introduced to birds by coming out to the festival in the 1990s, got hooked and have been birdwatching and plant watching ever since. So people just need that introduction, that hook.”
According to Holroyd, the festival would be a “pebble in the shoe,” which would compel people to stop and pay attention, and give them an opportunity to see for themselves the beauty in nature and how important it is to connect with it.
“When people spend more time in nature, they become more aware of their surroundings . . . contd.
