Bow Island tourism shifts focus

For years, Pinto McBean is one of the main reasons why travelers would stop in Bow Island. However, now the town has shift its focus to a new initiative to keep tourism consistent on a local scale.
“When your looking at tourism, you look at what is that we have that nobody else has,” said Terrie Matz, former chairperson with Tourism Bow Island.
“We’ve decided that it is the variety of crops that are growing in our area.”
Crops that grow in the area are anything from dill to sugar beet and potatoes and a short drive from the town.
The project is called the C40 Crop Story where people can visit a site beginning in 2018 and learn about crops through virtual pins that will be set up in the field.
Visitors will be able to show pictures of what is going on and where those virtual pins are and what they are for.
“We’ve been getting quite a bit of support from the Ag businesses in our area,” said Matz.
“That’s what we’re building on now and try to push towards more Ag. If you want to see where your crops are grown and where your food is coming from, come to Bow Island… you can see so many more crops than anywhere else.”
In 2017 this far, the town saw incresed events and helped ring in Canada’s 150 throughout the summer, while seeing over 4,000 people come through the area.
Additionally, there were flower pots that all had a theme and many people dressed in red and white.
There was also a church party at the pool on July 1. The Bow Island Rodeo was on Aug. 4 and 5 where they did a Canada 150 salute during the event as well as the Pivot Centre Fair at the end of the July.
“It’s always good to have some sort of them when your planning events for a year,” she said.
“There were more tourists on the road and people taking a look at that and appreciating it. We would’ve like to have done way more than we did. But the Canadian government wasn’t coming through with the grants in the same way they did when it was Canada’s 100th.”
Matz said to sta tuned to the community calendar as there is winter events going on.