rural culture Archives

Radio Free Kaslo — a Rural BC Summer Treat!

Nothing tops off a BC rural summer celebration like some good radio! There’s nothing quite like a summer evening, pretty much anywhere in rural BC. Friends and family enjoying a backyard barbecue. Or maybe a campout, in a West Coast cove, or along the shores of a lovely lake in the Interior, with some fun…

Rosebud, AB Shows the Arts Can Transform a Small Town

Rosebud, AB is tiny (fewer than 100 citizens) but mighty — at least when it comes to using the arts as an effective means of economic transformation. Every year upwards of 40,000 patrons flock to Rosebud, to eat a fabulous meal and enjoy fully professional theatre, in the middle of “prairie nowhere”! The Rosebud story…

The Arts & Rural Revitalization

Culture matters. According to the Creative Cities Network of Canada, municipalities that adopt culture as an industry gain positive economic benefits. Cultural industries create job growth, turn ordinary cities into “destination cities,” create interconnections between arts and business, revitalize urban areas, attract skilled workers, and create spin-off businesses, argues the Network. This may be the…

all that jazz… a conversation with Paul Hinrichs

All those mountains, and all that jazz… For over 25 years, the tiny West Kootenay village of Kaslo has played host to one of the world’s most celebrated outdoor music festivals. USA Today has called the Kaslo Jazz Festival “one of the 10 best places in the world to enjoy outdoor music in the…

Culture & rural development — how culture revitalized New York Mills, Minnesota

Culture & rural development — are they, or should they be, linked? Zachary Mannheimer, founder of the Des Moines Social Club, VP of Creative Placemaking for Iowa Business Growth, who has led numerous revitalization efforts in rural communities in the American Midwest, argues that the answer is a resounding yes. Mannheimer, who is particularly focused…

Paul Muir on the arts & small rural communities

For many small remote rural communities, the key to renewal and revitalization may well lie in the pent-up creativity of local residents. Culture, even if it starts out small, as it did in tiny (population 120) Rosebud, Alberta, can become a powerful change agent. Paul Muir is the Education Director of Alberta’s Rosebud School of the Arts.…

Rural revitalization & the arts — a conversation with John Davis

Rural revitalization and the arts — few places have linked the two more successfully than the small Minnesota towns of New York Mills and Lanesboro. So what do these communities have in common? Among other things, John Davis. Currently the Executive Director of Lanesboro Arts, Davis has helped bring various community factions together in both towns,…