by PAUL RAYNER

Ten years after the community’s first win in Communities in Bloom, Boissevain will be again judged in a competitive category.

The judges for the beautification contest will be arriving in town on July 26. Mayor Ed Anderson feels the community is ready.

“I think all of our volunteers are pleased we are back into competition,” Anderson stated, referring to the fact Boissevain spent the last two summers in the non-competitive Networking category. “Certainly it is the Olympics of beautification and I feel we will be extremely competitive. We say Boissevain gets more beautiful every year, but I am convinced we are this year.”

The judges this year are Steve Preston and Berta Briggs. Preston worked for the City of Brampton for 30 years in the field of Parks and Recreation, serving on a variety of committees. He has been involved in Communities in Bloom since 2000, and coordinated the Brampton campaign in the competition that led to a national championship and an International Challenge win the year of his retirement. He has been a judge for two years. Briggs has been judging since 2000, and has owned and operated a year-round greenhouse near Westaskiwin, Alberta since 1981.

Anderson said they will spend what time they have on the 26th touring the International Peace Garden, then start fresh on the 27th taking in the different key areas in Boissevain, like the recycling centre, which has added e-waste since the judges’ last visit, the different museums, heritage buildings and the ArtsPark, among other attractions.

The mayor said there are a few new additions to Boissevain this year. For example, the flowerpots and hanging baskets with reservoirs to make them almost self-watering have worked very well.

“They are simply awesome. They are drawing raves from visitors and locals alike.”

The palliative care garden at the Boissevain Health Centre is completed now, he said, which is a wonderful addition to the town, and he will be adding it to the tour for the first time. The huge new planters on the #10 Highway meridian have also made a positive impression. Anderson said they should be even better next year, when they can start the planting in February.

Other developments have caught the mayor’s eye.

“There have been new business developments radiating confidence in the community,” Anderson explained. “There is the new bakery building with its outdoor seating area. There is the new Field’s store, which is a major addition to our retail area. There is a new 19-unit apartment complex (Crocus Hill Estates) which will hopefully attract tenants from outside our area. We’ll go to the golf course and show the new irrigation system, which is making the grass greener than it’s ever been.”

One of the more interesting additions is the canoe by the Whitewater mural on #10 Highway. It was built in 1960 in Vancouver by Barry Johnson and Boissevain’s Alex Dring. With a laid out form it was made from 8 inch mahogany strips covered with epoxy resin and fiberglass, with two water tight compartments, one in front and one in back. Its purpose was to hunt on the Squamish River, and they practiced with it in Vancouver. It was used afterwards to fish for crabs at Ambleside and was used in Killarney Lake in 1962. Johnson, a writer from Vancouver whose basement hosted the building of the canoe, wrote stories of the adventures in the canoe, including “Squalor on the Squamish”.

The canoe, sitting in Dring’s backyard, was added this spring, Anderson said.

“People felt it would enhance the Whitewater mural area and they planted flowers in it.”

Boissevain had added something to its charm, but so has Communities in Bloom. This year, there are new criteria awards. This year, communities submit applications for consideration for awards in different categories, like tidiness, community environment and sustainable development. All in all, there are eleven possible awards.

Anderson said Boissevain will certainly be applying for some awards, but he was not sure how many at this time.

“The judges who came around used to do the selection,” he explained, “but now the communities do it in the International Challenge. I think we’ll have a committee meeting to see which ones to apply for. We’ll see which areas we’ve traditionally done well in and any we feel we’ve improved on. If we enter five or six that will be good.”

They have until August 20 to submit applications.

It was way back in 1999 that Boissevain first won its national championship. Time flies. Anderson said he remembers it well, and even further back.

“We first entered in 1996,” he remembered, “and it was at Hull, Quebec. I went down there and they showed pictures on a big screen of simply beautiful communities in Ontario and Quebec. They had natural hills and waterfalls. We’re here in the bald, flat prairie. How impossible was this scenario? It was a challenge, but three years later we were the national champion and then we won international twice. We keep raising the bar.”