Some local folks carved up the competition at the recent Reflections of Nature 2013 wildlife art competition, show and sale in Saskatoon.
Davidson wood carvers Eileen McRae and Jenny Scott and Austin Eade of Craik won awards at the annual show that showcases some of the best wildlife artists in western Canada.
The show is the largest in western Canada, so the quality of the carving is high and the competition stiff.
McRae won ribbons in the novice level for her elf owls carving which won first place for birds of prey class. Her morning dove won first place for the mid-sized birds class and the morning dove also won third place in the division.
She is particularly pleased that her Happy Bull won first place in the wildlife caricature category and then went on to win best in show.
McRae said when a show organizer first wrote down the name of the piece, he called it “Happy Cow”. She quickly corrected him. “Turn him over,” McRae told the man. “It’s not a cow.”
Scott brought home a first-place ribbon in the decorative miniature bird carvings division for her downy woodpecker, which took first place in the class and third in the division. Her kestrels won second in the birds of prey class for life-size bird carvings.
“Saskatoon has the toughest show going,” says Austin Eade, who has entered his carvings in shows across Canada.
He credits Saskatchewan’s long, cold winters for the prowess of the province’s wood carvers.
Eade enters his carvings in the open level, the toughest at the shows. Every minute detail is judged from the quills, feathers to barbettes. Every feature must be carved, including the branch or driftwood on which the bird is posed. Eade says the only allowance to this is the carvers may use glass eyes.
Eade’s pine grosbeak won second in the decorative life-size bird division in the songbirds class and third in the division. His Bairds sandpiper was first in its class and won second in the division.
He started carving birds almost seven years ago. He took classes to learn the craft. Eade says he only carves birds because that is what he started carving and has learned about bird anatomy.
He begins by sketching and creating his own patterns to get an attitude and habitat he likes. Then he gets ready to whittle.
He spends many, many hours on his carvings, which he enters in competitions throughout Canada.
“When you take all winter to carve something, you want to dig it out and show it,” Eade says.
He also judges competitions.
Carvings are judged on how closely the carving resembles the live bird. They also look at the presentation.
McRae said it can get pretty detailed.
“At the show they really will critique them. It can get down to them counting feathers on them,” she said.
To read more please see the November 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Monthly Archives: November 2013
Remembrance Day speaker impresses crowd
Upwards of 150 people joined together at Town Hall last Monday to show their gratitude for the sacrifices of Canada’s brave men and women who have given so much for our freedom.
Alfred Stulberg, a veteran of the Second World War and longtime member of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he was touched by the amount of effort that went into the annual Royal Canadian Legion branch #51 and Davidson Inter-Church Association (DICA) Remembrance Day Service Nov. 11 at the Davidson Auditorium.
“Somebody went to an awful lot of work and it sure showed,” said Stulberg, who served with the Infantry Armoured Core Division from 1942 to 1945. During the war he spent one-and-a-half years overseas and seven-and-a-half months of this time as a prisoner of war. “The service seems to be getting better every year. People are more interested than what they were a few years ago.”
Gord McRae, president of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he was “surprised” by the large number of people both young and old who attended the commemoration. He said Rev. Diane Eurig did a great job emceeing the service that featured guest speaker Claude Weil delivering a stirring speech on why it is important to fight for one’s values.
“A lot of people were just ‘wow’ and really overcome by him,” said McRae, noting he has already started planning next year’s service. “It was very interesting for anybody that was there. A lot of people were amazed by his history, where he’d come from and what he did. Then they say ‘well we live in a great country. We think it’s tough, but compared to what he did (it’s not).'”
During his speech, Weil first spoke about his experiences serving as an Israeli combat soldier stationed in the Sinai Desert with a field tank company during a time of heavy tension between Israel and Egypt during the mid-1970s. He then moved on to his main topic of ‘what is the right fight’ where he described how we are all soldiers whether we are members of the military or not and for that reason we all must fight for what we believe in.
At the end of Weil’s speech he presented a definition of ‘what is the right fight’ when he said a fight is right if it is meant to directly protect the most vulnerable citizens of a country, province and community.
Weil said he chose the topic of ‘what is the right fight’ because it demonstrates how we all can fight the “little challenges” we encounter every day to make a difference. He said there are very few professional soldiers out there and they cannot solve all the world’s problems by themselves.
To read more please see the November 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Raiders senior girls team struggles against Hawks at regionals
The Davidson Raiders senior girls volleyball team showed plenty of determination and great sportsmanship against the Hepburn Hawks at the West Regional Championship Nov. 9 in Wilkie, but still couldn’t match the strong Hawks play on the court.
The Raiders lost 25-17 in the first set and 25-11 in the second against the Hawks giving Hepburn a 2-0 win. The loss put an end to Davidson’s hopes of bringing home a provincial title this year.
“At the Regional Championship, I thought Hepburn was the best team there and they played consistently well the whole day,” said Raiders head coach Tony Baldwin. “I was disappointed that we lost in two straight games after giving them a run for their money (Nov. 2 at the Conference Championship), but they were definitely the best team there on Saturday.”
Baldwin said the girls’ overall play during the Regional Championship was a step down from what they have displayed over the past few weeks. He said they won their first game against the Kerrobert Rebels “quite easily” posting a two-set victory with scores of 25-16 and 25-20, but even then they weren’t playing up to their potential.
The Raiders coach said the girls’ next game against Leader was a struggle with Davidson winning the first set by a close score of 26-24, but lost the next two 25-20 and 25-23 setting up the first round playoff match with Hepburn. Against the Hawks, Baldwin said there were six players for his club that stood out the most even though they didn’t see much playing time.
“Kari Van de Wiele, Katelyn Riecken, Cheyenne Nordmarken, Tina Stone, Sydney Booker and Elise McJannet were absolutely the standouts of the day,” he said. “The six of them stood and cheered and overpowered the entire group of Hepburn fans during both games where we were struggling on the court and Hepburn was playing great. Everyone would rather be on the court, (but) the fact that they were totally engaged in the game and their team in this context is a credit to all of them as individuals and to the team as a group. I was very proud of them.”
To read more please see the November 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Cyclones feel shame after undisciplined play
The Davidson Cyclones senior hockey team can take solace that they earned one point in their first two games of the 2013-2014 season, but as evidenced by their parade to the penalty box they still have a few kinks to work out.
Jason Shaw, head coach of the Cyclones, said the team did not get the results they wanted in a lopsided 5-2 loss against the Pirates in Lanigan Nov. 9 followed by a 7-6 shootout defeat at home last Wednesday to the Watrous Winterhawks. He said the “effort was there” both times, but giving up seven power play goals in the two games is unacceptable.
“We (have) got to fix that,” said Shaw. “Some of (the penalties) are just guys that are not quite in playing shape yet. We had those two exhibition games and a couple skates, so if you’re out of position and you’re not moving your feet that’s when penalties usually happen. Once guys do some more skating and get in a little better game shape hopefully those penalties won’t happen. We’re going to try to work on our penalty kill and get it a little better.”
The Cyclones dominated the Winterhawks through the first half of the contest going up 5-2 on goals by Pat Cey, Carter Smith, Kyle Bortis, Zach Sim and Derek Allan. With 6:34 left in the second Bortis took a tripping penalty, which was shortly followed by a hooking minor to Colton Allan. Watrous would score two goals on that power-play time bringing the score to 5-4.
A late second period roughing call to Steven Shearwood handed the Winterhawks a five-on-four advantage on fresh third period ice, which they used to even up the score at fives only 25 seconds into the period. The teams would exchange goals in the third remaining deadlocked until Watrous forward Travis Fagum put his team up 7-6 in the shootout. Allan, Bortis and Cey couldn’t reply back in their breakaway attempts.
“It could have gone either way,” said Shaw. “We were up 5-2 and then at the end of the second the penalties got us in a little bit of trouble. In this league every night it’s going to be a tough game. It gets you ready for provincials or playoffs because you can’t show up and just go through the motions. In the long run that’s good for us. You’re better playing 7-6 games or close games than beating somebody 10-2.”
Shaw said one of the other difficulties the Cyclones are having right now is there are a lot of new players this year and they need to learn to work together. He said the club has been lucky the past three or four years as there hasn’t been that much turnover, so the task at hand is to get the guys used to each other and work on improving the special teams.
“We might juggle the lines around a little bit, but that will probably just come out of necessity of guys hurt or working,” he said. “If we can get two lines going and scoring and score some more on the power play and get the penalty kill down we should be all right.”
Kretsch
Leonard William Kretsch of Elbow, Sask., age 86 passed away peacefully on Monday, October 28, 2013 at the Davidson Health Centre, Davidson, Sask.
Leonard is survived by his loving family: wife Doreen; stepdaughter Linda Butcher; niece Sharlene Theede; brother Milton (Helen) Kretsch; sister Bernice (Norman) Monich; sister-in-law Donna Kretsch; also numerous nieces, nephews and other family members.
The Mass of Christian Burial was held on Saturday, November 2, 2013 at 1 p.m. from the Bethel Lutheran Church, Elbow, Sask. with celebrants Rev. Father Stephen Ripplinger and Rev. Father Joseph Gyim-Austin officiating.
Interment in the family plot, Elbow Community Cemetery, Elbow, Sask.
For friends so wishing memorials in memory of Leonard may be directed to the charity of your choice.
Hanson’s Funeral Home, Davidson, Sask. in care of arrangements. Phone 306-567-2020; fax 306-567-2000. Email: hansonsfuneralhome@sasktel.net
Modern times bring numbers to Hawarden households
The Village of Hawarden can no longer be referred to as the little town where you locate houses by their description. Residents have now received house numbers.
Barb Martin, Village of Hawarden clerk, said the 40 occupied buildings in the village as well as the vacant lots received numbers a month ago. She said this was done after emergency personnel requested the village office institute the numerical addresses.
“The reason that we’re all having to do it is because emergency services want us to have house numbers, they want all of our little communities to have house numbers, because (without them) it just makes it impossible for them to find places,” said Martin. “You can’t just tell an ambulance come to the second house on the northwest corner of town.”
Martin said emergency personnel used to find the right house through people going out and parking at the highway, so they could lead the ambulance to the right building. She said that makes it important to have the house numbers, but it was also fun to be a bit different.
“I thought it was kind of nice and sort of quirky,” she said. “Some people had assigned themselves numbers. One street had two number 19s on it and stuff like that, which is pretty quirky. But now we have actual numerical order numbers and everybody has their own.”
To get residences their proper numbers Martin took a map of the village and put numbers on it before members of council drove around to make sure the right houses had the right numbers. She said sometimes it was a little hard to tell because there would be several lots belonging to one person, but they did their best to make sure everything is correct.
Martin said the village office then assigned residents a number and each household was responsible for putting up their own number. Despite not being different anymore, she said it is a good change for many different reasons.
“The satellite dish people and everything like that, they want a physical address and they didn’t seem to want lot and block numbers, which is why people started making themselves up numbers (before),” she said. “You also have to have a number for your driver’s licence. I personally had taken my lot and block number and just put them together (for my licence).”
The change to numerical addresses is also good because when couriers come into town they had a hard time finding the right people, said Martin.
“It’s not like the town is that huge, but still it makes it a little more difficult. Modern times intrude on all of us.”