Heritage booth brings Poltimore's history to the fair
Tashi Farmilo
A heritage booth built to reconnect residents with their own history made its debut at this summer's Poltimore Fair, where organizers and a handful of longtime locals spent the August 7 to 9 event sharing artifacts, archival photographs and stories from the Val-des-Monts community's past.
Organizer Kirsten LaSalle Morin, who helps plan the fair alongside a fellow volunteer, said the booth was meant to remind people of what the community has produced and endured. Titled "Bridging Communities Through Heritage at the Poltimore Fair," it paired documents and images with local artifacts such as trophies, jerseys and books written about the area's families. This year's edition focused on the story of the fair itself. Organizers described it as a success.
At the centre of the booth were five residents brought in to trade stories with visitors. They included Leslie Mallon, a bilingual cattle farmer born and raised in Poltimore who has served on the fair board and volunteered with a local church for decades, and Barbara Warwick Cheslock, who settled in the village after marrying farmer Garnet Cheslock and has become a reliable source on its history, its churches and its school events. Harold McClelland spoke to a piece of commercial history familiar to most residents: his father, J.B. McClelland, built up the village grocery and hardware store, and Harold ran the Freshmart with his two brothers from their father's death in 1992 until his retirement in 2015. Rounding out the group was Ronald "Ronnie" Nitschkie, a farmer who has spent decades on his wife Catherine's ancestral land and is regarded locally as a keeper of the area's stories.
Also on hand was Cindy-Ann Hough McClelland, a genealogist who grew up in High Falls and moved to Poltimore after marrying Harold. LaSalle Morin's grandmother, she staffed the booth and fielded questions rather than addressing crowds. She is the author of two local histories, "Poltimore's Ties to the Great War 1914-1918" and "The Bonsalls of Poltimore Quebec: here, beyond & back."
The money came through SHARE, a micro-grant program QAHN runs with support from the federal Department of Canadian Heritage to raise the profile of English-speaking heritage in the province and to build ties between anglophone and francophone communities. The network says 18 organizations across eight Quebec regions shared roughly $220,000 in its most recent round, with Poltimore the sole recipient in the Outaouais. The project, the first of its scale at the fair, was paid for with a $2,000 micro-grant from the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) and, according to the network, was the only Outaouais initiative funded in its latest round of heritage grants, announced in June.
For LaSalle Morin, the booth was about more than nostalgia. Small towns across Canada have struggled to draw residents out to community events, she said, and Poltimore is no exception, with many people commuting long hours into the city. She hopes that reminding residents of the community's accomplishments will "bring back the pride of Poltimore." As she put it, "With more pride comes more participation, and with more participation comes a thriving community."
The Poltimore Fair has been part of life in Val-des-Monts since 1952, when it began as an agricultural event. It has since grown well beyond its farming roots, adding the Kioti Professional Rodeo, truck and ATV mud runs, horse pulls, live music, inflatable rides, vendors, food and children's exhibits, though it still bills itself as the best little fair in the Outaouais. Organizers say this year was the first time the fair had included a heritage element on this scale.
They do not intend it to be the last. The storytellers have already begun sketching ideas for the 2027 fair, which organizers say will be its 75th edition, with hopes of showcasing more of the village's past. LaSalle Morin has raised the idea of rotating the booth's theme in future years, from the area's farming families and businesses to its founding families, its sports and Poltimore Elementary School.
