SMOKY LAKE — The 2024 iteration of the Smoky Lake’s Great White North Pumpkin weigh-off and fair was once again an unmissable event for locals, growers, and pumpkin admirers from all across the prairies.
Hundreds of guests — many sporting knit, bright orange pumpkin toques and hats — purused the many offerings at this year’s festival, including live gourd carving, an action-packed midway, a huge selection of food trucks and vendors, and of course, the ever-popular pumpkin weigh-offs.
Don Crews of Lloydminster once again won the prize for biggest pumpkin, with one monster specimen weighing in at a whopping 2,137 lbs.
“It always feels good!” Crews said with a laugh after posing for pictures in front of his prize pumpkin with fans. The grower from Lloyd currently holds both the site and Canadian record, with a 2,537 lbs grown in 2022, but said he has no idea how many weigh-off wins he has under his belt.
“It’s not that I don’t care about winning, it’s that you’re really trying to beat your own personal best,” said Crews.
Crews has been a faithful attendee of the Smoky Lake fair and weigh-off for around 24 years, and said he got into growing giant gourds after his wife bought seeds for a laugh.
“She was going to plant them in my mom’s garden for a joke, but we never got to it, and it just sat there on the counter. One day after our children were born, I looked at it and I said, ‘We should probably see if these things’ll grow or not,’ — so it’s my wife’s fault,” he added, chuckling.
Crews gave the hundreds of weigh-off watchers tips for growing their own prize-winning pumpkins, noting eager gardeners should be preparing now ahead of spring planting season. Amending your soil to ensure the correct nutrients are in place is the first step to growing a giant.
During it’s peak growing season, which can last between 20 and 30 days, Crew’s pumpkin packed on 50 lbs per day, and he said he’s had specimen in the past that grew up to 80lbs a day.
And caring for a winning pumpkin is not for the faint of heart. Crews said he’ll spend hours in the greenhouse daily on maintenance like pruning vines, rooting nodes, and keeping steady temperatures. But competition between his past grows is what keeps him growing.
“It’s like an addiction. Every year, you go, ‘Oh, if only I had done that, that’s what I did wrong,’” said Crews.
A smash hit
Other than the weigh-offs, the fair had much to offer attendees in the way of entertainment. A farmers’ market with local vendors was on site, as were more than 20 mouth-watering food options, including Jamaican patties, Latin-style hot dogs, bubble tea, and butter chicken and jerk chicken poutine options.
The wrap-up event to the day-long festival was the much-anticipated pumpkin drop, which drew hundreds of festival-goers. An industrial crane was used to hoist two more giant gourds up to dizzying heights before being released to fall onto a junk car.
Kids in the crowd were buzzing with anticipation before Smoky Lake Fire Department volunteers gave them the go-ahead to enter the roped-off area and grab a portion of pumpkin for the seeds.
Children boasted their hauls for all to hear as crowds departed from another successful year at the Great White North Pumpkin Fair, wrapped up by an evening kitchen party held at Métis Crossing.
