Image Credit: Desert Daze Music Festival

By Steven Rice

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When the idea of a music festival was brought forward by Steve Rice with a small but passionate handful of folks at the Spences Bridge Community Club meeting, some serious discussion ensued that suggested it may be a challenging yet a doable venture.

How could a small group of volunteers put together a music festival? Certainly, this would require some professional help and what about the cost? Both serious questions with no immediate answers.

After much discussion, the Spences Bridge Community Club president of the day, Mavourneen Varcoe-Ryan, brought a motion to the floor to hold a music festival in Spences Bridge at the old elementary school — the perfect venue for an outdoor festival. It passed unanimously.

That meeting, back in 2009, set the wheels in motion. We wanted to involve the community, deciding to hold a contest to name our newly founded festival. Longtime resident, writer, activist Liz Keates came up with “Desert Daze”. It captured our imaginations, our village, our votes — and the rest is history!

Now, a logo. A some time festival performer and local resident Dwayne Rourke stepped up and designed the first festival logo, capturing the beauty and spirit of Desert Daze.

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Beautifully situated where two rivers meet, semi-desert climate, Spences Bridge is the perfect venue for a late summer festival. Mid-season for the local farms, harvesting fruit and vegetables, fresh picked and scrumptious!

Talented artists, craft folk, musicians, many locals are a part of the tapestry that makes our festival special. The volunteers! Never forget the volunteers. Without them there is no festival. Former Fire Chief Arnie Oram has been a part of Desert Daze from the get go. Mavourneen has been the go-to volunteer from Day 1, the energizer bunny of enthusiasm. She kicked off the first Desert Daze as Festival Director, followed by Maya Nadine. Mavourneen again stepped in until Jan Schmitz took the reigns.

The steering committee made a decision in the early years — we will be an all-Canadian festival if possible. Desert Daze — ”Best Little Fest in the West”. We truly believe our festival embraces the heart and soul of the rural resiliency of the people, in a special place we call home. The greater Spences Bridge area has suffered a horrific hat trick of tragedies, tragedies unprecedented in recent Canadian history. COVID, through which we all suffered, hit small rural communities especially hard because access to amenities is limited and small business staffing becomes a huge challenge. That said, it was just the beginning.

On June 30, 2021 nearly the entire village of Lytton burned to the ground in 35 minutes. That was the first of many wildfires that roared through the Gold Country corridor, evacuating many, swallowing up any infrastructure that dare stand in its path. We exhaled when the fire season ended…battered and bruised but thankful for the end.

Then the unimaginable — a November flood. Spring freshet is flooding season. What was happening? November 14, 2021. The wildfires had compromised the forest floors. That night and early morning, the torrential downpour pelted the vulnerable target into submission. The hills had no weapons to combat an attack of this magnitude, so they surrendered to Mother Nature. The hills came tumbling down. Highways 1 and 8 followed, with chunks of concrete being swept away, homes, outbuildings, farm animals minutes at time and time again it unfolded. That morning of the 15th, we witnessed a wave of destruction beyond our imaginations. The Highway 8 families could no longer go home except by helicopter. Some had no homes to go to at all as the 1200-year flooding event of our beautiful Nicola River had wiped out everything in its path. Pictures could not tell the story — you had to be there. A life was lost. Nearly four years later we are all still in recovery — mental and physical. We are rebuilding homes, health, finances, we are rebuilding lives.

Someone should be capturing the miracle that is happening now. This many-billion-dollar disaster has brought an army of equipment, manpower, expertise to our back yard to rebuild the roads. Washboard roads, stoppages, single lanes, road closures, huge clouds of dust, thousand of truck loads of rip rap to build back the riverbanks. Environmental monitors to ensure our fisheries have a chance for sustainability. The list goes on and on and on.

Yet the story is lost of this small village of 150 folks and 350 bighorn sheep. Spences Bridge has and will continue to rise to the challenges that lie ahead. The Desert Daze Music Festival plays an important role in our healing, in our holding onto a sense of normalcy. Let the bands play on because Desert Daze 2025 will NOT be the day that we let the music die in Spences Bridge.

Desert Daze Music Festival acknowledges it carries out its work on the traditional territories of the Nlaka’pamux First Nations in British Columbia. We pay our respects to the Elders, past and present, descendants, and custodians of these land.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.