A homegrown event that celebrates indigenous culture has been nominated for an Alto Award from Travel Alberta.

Lynn and Mike Fabrick of Dry Canyon Collectables learned last week the Dancing with the Dinosaurs Festival is a finalist for the Alto Tourism Event or Festival of the Year.

Lynn tells the Mail, she recalls filling out the package but never thought anything of it. A couple of weeks ago she received an email urging them to book a room for the annual Travel Alberta Industry Conference in Banff later this month.

“I was working on my grant application for the federal government for next year’s powwow and I opened an email because the subject said ‘congratulations” and that’s what it was,” she said.

  According to the announcement the  Event or Festival of the Year Award is “designed to celebrate events and festivals which drive tourism attendance to their region, highlight unique Alberta programming and brings an economic impact to their community.”

The Fabricks organized Powwow Celebration 150 in 2017. This year they extended the event over two days with a tipi raising and an artisan fair on June 30 and then on July 1, they held a powwow competition with dancers and drummers from throughout Western Canada and the Northern United States.

“My favourite part is the drumming because everyone has the same heartbeat and it draws everyone in regardless of culture or background. You can hear it throughout the valley and it bounces through everyone,” said Lynn.

Also nominated in the same category is Christmas in November at the Jasper Park Lodge and Taste of Edmonton.

Another nominated project that took place in Drumheller was Drumbeats - responsive Marketing Campaign. It is a finalist for the Marketing Excellence Campaign or Project up to $20,000.

Katie Ohe, Alberta-born ceramic artist and long-time teacher with international credentials in sculpture, was guest speaker at the opening of “Art in the Gallery 3D” on Sun. Sept. 30 in the Western GM Gallery of the Badlands Community Facility.

The show runs to Oct. 28 with a variety of sculptures by 11 Alberta artists. The works were critiqued in appreciative detail by Ohe to an audience of about 30 residents and visitors at the afternoon reception. Her considerable experience, ranging from academic and hands-on studies in Canada, USA and Italy, was illuminating to the attending non-sculptors who could better understand both the heft and the craft of the presented works.

Katie Ohe was born near Peers in northern Alberta in 1937, is married to well-known artist Harry Kiyooka, and they are founders of the Kiyooka Ohe Art Centre in Sprinbank, west of Calgary. Her achievements include 16 public sculpture commissions, 12 solo exhibitions and 25 group exhibitions.

Katherine Yitalo in a 2017 magazine article described her: “If we lived in Japan, we would call her a national living treasure”. It was a great honour to Drumheller that the Alberta Society of Artists and the Alberta Foundation of the Arts sponsored the exhibition and this speaker.