Manitoba might have a reputation, among both Manitobans and outsiders, as a sleepy corner of the Canadian Prairies. But it’s getting harder for detractors to keep the truth under wraps: Manitoba is party country.

This is part of why it feels so good to announce that 2024 marks the return of The Uniter’s special Summer Festival Guide issue!

The Summer Festival Guide was an annual tradition for us here at the paper before the province, like the rest of the world, was brought to a standstill by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the world has had a few years to partially recover, and local yearly festivals have slowly started getting things moving again, we at The Uniter are finally ready to release our first Summer Festival Guide since 2019.

The last few summers have still been busy for us. But from 2020 to 2023, we opted instead to cover sporadic individual stories on uniter.ca. We’re still doing a bit of that – and one such story is featured in this issue. But 2024 feels like a good time for us to encourage folks to get back into the summer festival spirit.

In the pages of this issue, you’ll find a fairly substantial schedule listing the dates and details for as many Manitoba festivals as we could find – provided they happen between May 30 and the September long weekend. Unfortunately, a few were too early or too late for us to highlight them – apologies to the Manitoba Maple Syrup Festival and Neighbour by Neighbour.

Enjoy your summer festivities!

Published in Volume 78, Number 25 of The Uniter (May 30, 2024)