There's about 20 more artists selling work at the centre compared to January 2019. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

Sales up

Lac La Ronge Visitor Centre has record-breaking year: Manager

Jan 8, 2020 | 5:00 PM

It was a record-breaking year for sales at the Lac La Ronge Visitor Centre.

That’s according to Manager Judy Hanke, who attributes the higher amount due to increases in local art and increased awareness of what the centre offers.

In January 2019, the center was selling work from 86 artists and that increased to 107 by January 2020.

“All of them are from our tri-community, but some have places in Wadin Bay or Otter Lake or right around the vicinity,” she said. “We kept it very local.”

Since 2019, Hanke also mentioned the number of people signing the guest book since 2016 has doubled. She noted there were about 2,300 people who logged into register that year compared to about 4,400 in 2018. In 2019, close to 3,900 people did so, but Hanke doesn’t believes the numbers are accurate.

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“December was so busy that we didn’t keep track because we just couldn’t,” she said. “We’re finding in other months like November, people are just tired of signing the guest register, so the stats aren’t accurate. For sales-wise, we had a record-breaking year.”

Many of the people from outside of the tri-communities who stop at the centre come from throughout the province, along with Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba. Hanke noted canoers continue to be repeat visitors, adding many school groups travel to the North and she sends out certificates to them when they complete the routes.

People from all over Canada stopped at the visitor centre. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

“It used to slow down a lot more, but it doesn’t now because this has become the place to come and shop,” she said. “January and February tend to be a bit slower, but we just saw our numbers increase throughout the entire year.”

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno