When you live in Pemberton, January doesn’t need to be the month of post-Christmas doldrums. With children’s entertainer Will Stroet in town this weekend the new Pemberton Leisure Guide chock full of activities, the library film club back in action and Winterfest on the horizon, your social and leisure calendar won’t miss a beat.
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Will Stroet, the award-winning children’s entertainer, will be performing this Saturday, (Jan. 12) at the Pemberton Community Centre. Presented by Growing Great Children, doors open at 10 a.m.; show starts at 10:30 a.m. Tickets at the door — $5 each or $15 for a family. For more on Will, visit willmusic.ca.
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The Pemberton Film Club is back in action with its first film of 2013. Shun Li and the Poet, an Italian drama with English subtitles directed by Andrea Segre, will be showing at the Pemberton Public Library next Thursday (Jan. 17) at 7 p.m. Film goers can also visit the recently reopened One Mile Eatery — now even bigger and better thanks to renovations — for the film night special.
An official selection of the Venice Film Festival, Shun Li and the Poet tells the story of Shun Li, who works in a textile factory near Rome, slowly paying off the broker who brought her to Italy from China, and trying to obtain the documents she needs to bring her son to Italy. The story continues with a transfer to a job as a bartender at a pub in a small town that is a hangout for local fishermen, including the handsome Bepi, a handsome old Slav immigrant nicknamed “The Poet.” The story continues as a friendship develops between the two — something both of their communities find disturbing.
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Pemberton’s annual celebration of winter — Winterfest — gets underway in just over a week with three days of wintertime fun.
The event kicks off on Friday (Jan. 18), with D’ALE and the Coolers playing at the Legion from 8 p.m. Doors open hours before, so you can always start the party early. Tickets are $10 each. Enquire at the Legion about advance tickets. The event runs well into the evening, as the Legion has a closing time of 1 a.m.
The winter carnival starts the next day on Saturday (Jan. 19) at 4 p.m. at One Mile Lake, with a food concession starting at 5 p.m. A DJ, fireworks, ice skating with on-ice movies in the background, plus fire spinners and fireworks at 8 p.m. to round out the evening. Everyone is welcome. Free transportation to One Mile begins at 5 p.m. from the Pemberton Community Centre parking lot, departing at the bottom half of each hour.
The carnival continues on Sunday (Jan. 20), 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at One Mile Lake. Stop by for some snow golf, curling, shinny hockey, skating and music, ice fishing, snow soccer and of course, the famous Polar Bear Plunge.
Visit www.pembertonwinterfest.com for details on times and how to sign up for events.
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Send comments and event listing ideas to itsmegrace@hotmail.com. The next Pemberton column will appear Jan. 24.
