NACI French class takes in the Voyageur life

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Published on Friday, February 26, 2016

Submitted photo. One can never be too old for a field trip. The NACI senior high French class got to take one to Winnipeg to spend a day at Festival du Voyageur on Thursday, Feb. 18.  

Submitted by Nora Heschuk

Neepawa Area Collegiate

On Thursday, Feb. 18, 30 Neepawa Area Collegiate (NACI) high school French students experienced the “Joie de Vivre” at the Festival du Voyageur – “the largest winter festival in western Canada”.  The students attended a variety of fun and informative activities related to Manitoba’s history, with emphasis on Voyageur, Métis and First Nations histories.

This was the first time that these students experienced the high school program at the Festival du Voyageur, which offers learning opportunities geared towards this older age group. 

The students began the day watching a historical play featuring two funny characters who dramatized the Red River Conflicts that led to the amalgamation of the two fur trade companies in the Red River region in the early 1800s. Students also enjoyed a brief history lesson in the Maison Bourgeoise (the big house) inside the reconstructed Fort Gibraltar.  They then learned a French-Canadian folk dance with the Ensemble folklorique de la Rivière-Rouge, which gave the students some insight into how people got together and amused themselves before the age of the Internet, cell phones and Netflix. Finally, students enjoyed their lunches while listening to “Nicolas Pellerin et les Grands hurleurs”, which is one of the most popular francophone traditional music groups on Canadian and European stages. Free time was also scheduled into the day so that students could enjoy traditional cuisine, sensational snow sculptures and interacting with the many volunteers dressed in traditional costumes.