Downtown plaza to host Bon Soo events

The downtown plaza will be added as a new venue at the 2024 Bon Soo Winter Carnival, members of the Tourism Sault Ste. Marie board learned on Tuesday.

Attempting to expand their programming earlier this year after being ravaged by COVID-19 for three years, Bon Soo organizers set up some additional downtown events zones.

"So we expanded to include multiple zones downtown from the Machine Shop, Northern Superior, the Bushplane and Clergue Park," said Kurtis McDermid, who chairs the Bon Soo board.

"Next year, Clergue Park and the downtown plaza will be utilized as our secondary zone," McDermid said.

This year was Bon Soo's 60th anniversary and Tourism Sault Ste. Marie approved a $75,000 grant to assist with the winter carnival's post-pandemic revitalization.

A further $75,000 was authorized on Tuesday for the 2024 event with $25,000 of that to be spent on lighting infrastructure intended to create a visible presence and ‘Instagramable’ feature downtown.

"This is to take part in Clergue Park and our downtown plaza area," McDermid said.

"Whether you are coming in from the east, north or you're coming in over the border, when you head downtown there will be absolutely no mistake that there is a festival going on.

"That is one of the biggest areas of improvement that we saw this year that we need to make. We need to be sure that we have three zones downtown."

Organizers hope to improve on this year's extraordinary button sales, which exceeded 10,000.

So many Bon Soo buttons were sold that they ran out and had to scrawl handwritten notes on the backs of business cards to ensure carnival-goers could access venues.

Over the past year, Bon Soo has increased its army of volunteers by more than 80 per cent, paid off all outstanding debt and reconnected with sponsors it lost during the pandemic.

In addition to adding new ‘zones’ in the downtown core, Bon Soo has been adding programming alternatives that aren't weather-dependent, targeting young families, post-secondary (ages 19-29) and 35+ demographics, and multicultural programming acknowledging Canada's Indigenous heritage and representing the community.

This year's Bon Soo board of directors is comprised of:

• Kurtis McDermind – president
• Michael Dal Cin – treasurer
• Lynda Crockford – vice chair
• Julia Dufour – secretary
• Sarah Skagen – director
• Rachel Rankin – director
• Jerret Semczysyn – director
• Makayla Legge – director
• Amelia Morris – director
• Ashlynn McMillan – director
• Jeany White – past chair

The Sault's first winter carnival took place in 1964, started by local businessman Henry Bullock.

The first quarter of the year is traditionally a slow one in the tourism sector and the event helped invigorate those three months.

A contest was held to name the carnival.

It was won by 10-year-old Donald Norman from Parkland Public School, who came up with Bon Soo: 'bon' being the French word for 'good,' while 'Soo' is Sault Ste. Marie's nickname.

Ken McDougall, the local artist who designed the Soo Greyhounds logo, was hired to create the ellipsoid-headed Mr. Bon Soo, the carnival's ebullient host.

Bon Soo gets its funding solely through sales of buttons and sponsorships.

It is organized by community volunteers and for the last four years has not had a paid staff lead.

This year, more than 100 individuals volunteered, providing 900 hours of support.

The 2023 sponsor package included a volunteer tier and 13 local businesses contributed volunteer time.

A volunteer recruitment campaign for 2024 will be launched later this month.