The La Ronge Children's Festival had been an event in the community for at least two decades. (Image Credit: La Ronge Children's Festival)

By Derek Cornet

Canada Day

La Ronge Children’s Festival to be discontinued

Mar 18, 2026 | 4:55 PM

The annual La Ronge’s Children’s Festival will be discontinued.

That’s according to board member Viviana Ruiz Arcand, who explained the reasoning for doing so comes down to a lack of volunteers.

“We have been able to attract one more volunteer over the last two years, but it’s really hard to run an event of that size when it is only being coordinated by two or three people,” she remarked.

“We are not just looking at the planning and coordination of the event, we’re also looking at the day of the event being physically present just to make sure everything goes as planned and making sure anyone who has been booked to be part of the event is being accommodate how they need to be accommodated.”

The La Ronge Children’s Festival, which is held on Canada Day, also didn’t go ahead in 2025. Last year, the Town of La Ronge stepped in to offer some programming downtown, but it was a scaled back version compared to what the children’s festival offered.

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Ruiz Arcand noted when the festival was last held in 2024, there were also security issues.

“We actually ended up hiring people to act as additional eyes and ears in the park that day just to make sure things ran smoothly,” she added.

“Despite the fact we did have additional eyes and ears hired, we did have some incidents where we had to have RCMP involved. Not many, but it just kind of takes away from the intent of the event if we have such a huge need for security.”

Ruiz Arcand is hopeful another organization or group of people will be willing to host the children’s festival themselves. She said they have funding available and could assist with providing contacts on potential entertainment for the event.

“Parents of younger children in the community who want to see events like this happen, it would be really important for them to consider volunteering and becoming part of a planning committee because that’s how it originally started,” Ruiz Arcand said.

“As people’s children got older, the interest became less and less, but I think if there was a group of people, we could definitely help them with the basics of it and get them going.”

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com