Woodstock, Manitoba style


The Niverville Pop Festival poster. O


The band The Brother perform onstage.


n Sunday, May 24, 1970, 50 years ago this month, Manitoba experienced its very own Woodstock. Billed as the Niverville Pop Fes- tival, the event was staged in a farmer’s field near the quiet rural community of Niverville, 40 km south of Winnipeg. What began as a sun-filled, fun-filled day of music and hippie am- biance, like Woodstock, turned into a mud bath of epic proportions. The motivation for the festival came when teenager Lynn Derksen fell off a hayride and suffered a serious injury requiring a $30,000 oxygenator. Ef- forts to raise funds for the machine had been relatively slow until three Winnipeg musicians,


Bill Wallace,


Kurt Winter and Vance Masters, col- lectively called Brother, along with Niverville resident Harold Wiebe, took up the cause. Once word of the charitable event got around, dozens of local bands offered to perform. Niver- ville farmer Joe Chipilski donated his uncultivated field 10 km from town and parking was arranged on a property across the road. Local merchant Wm. Dyck & Sons provided a 45-foot- long flatbed trailer for the stage. Garnet Amplifiers supplied amplification. Tickets were a bargain at $1 and the show was set to commence at three p.m. on Sunday. Organizers anticipated 5,000 attending. By two p.m., double that number had taken over the field,


Francois Venter


We see people every day. People we notice, assess, ignore. Neighbours, cashiers and fel- low bus riders receive a nod, perfunctory smile or brief eye contact. “Whadda Ya At B’y?” aims to open hearts to our common humanity.


language is Afrikaans. He did start to learn English once he enrolled in school. The embodiment of Her- culean strength, it is little wonder that sports has a berth in his life narrative. Family is very important to him. Courage, a good heart and empathy have guided his life decisions. Francois attended Laer-


B


orn in Pretoria, South Africa in 1979, Francois Al- wyn Venter’s first


where he flourished. Francois started training in Grade 1, practicing in high school facilities, then moving onto the University of Pretoria before finishing at Centurion’s Gymnastics Hall. Centu- rion is to Pretoria as Mississauga is to Toronto. Practising mornings and evenings while in school, Fran- coise was identified for the Olympic Develop- ment Program at age 10. He went on to attend the University of Pretoria in 2000 and by 2001 had participated in the XXI Summer Universiade


in


Beijing. Even


skool Totiusdal (named after an Afrikaans poet) from Grades 1-4 and Laerskool Lynnwood for Grades 5-7. He attended Wilgers Hoër Skool one year in Grade 8 as it was the same school a cousin attended.


His younger sister was a tennis prodi- gy and attended Waterkloof Hoër Skool for its tennis academy. It was a major sports school and Francois switched to register during Grades 9-12. It was easier for his parents if both Venter chil- dren went to the same school. While Francois is enthusiastic about


Formula One (F1) auto racing, rugby and cricket, gymnastics is where his passion for sports was cultivated and


16 whatsupwinnipeg.ca


Aengus Kane Whadda


Ya At B’y? before he had


graduated with a sports science and bio-kinetics degree, he started to make a living as a gymnast when a fellow South Af- rican national team mem-


ber recruited him to join Jump Sport Inc., a trampoline company.


It was


like working for both the Red River Ex and Cirque de Soleil. He traveled and put on shows (such as the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg) exhib- iting sports, kids, lifestyles, science & tech and outdoor lifestyle products. He also started to consult as a strength and conditioning coach. As is the case with many athletes, physical damage eventually took its toll. By 2006, two knee and three shoulder injuries later, Francois starting consulting with high school boys rugby and cricket players


at Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool. In 2007 he was married. His wife gave birth to their daughter in 2009.


Meanwhile, his doctor father and el- ementary school teacher mother had moved to Manitoba, Canada in 2003. They had South African friends in Win- nipeg and had been talking about it since Francois was in high school. The original plan had been to retire back to South Africa after five years. The South African medical system is quite similar to the American system, with much more private insurance. His Dad was frustrated spending the major- ity of his time arguing with insurance companies about whether a patient of 35 years needed a particular drug or not, if switching to a generic drug was merely cheaper or would it cause ad- verse reactions, and whether or not an insurance policy covered a needed pro- cedure motivated him to emigrate. He is practicing as a G.P. in Stonewall now. In 2009, Francois hit a crossroad in


his life. He was already the South Afri- can National Volleyball Team’s strength and conditioning consultant. He had an opportunity to move and do the same job for Ireland’s Junior National Rugby team. That same year, during a visit to see his parents, Francoise de- cided to move to Canada. The logistics of the move made sense. As a South Af- rican, he could go to Australia or New Zealand as many of his countrymen had already done. But his parents could sponsor him through Manitoba’s Pro- vincial Nominee Program. He wanted a brighter future for his daughter and to


have his family closer. By then, his sister had attended Middle Tennessee State University on a tennis scholarship, had earned her green card and was now an American citizen. Francoise started school again at the University of Winnipeg in 2010, merg- ing his four years at the University of Pretoria with two years at U of W to earn a B.A. (4 Year) in Kinesiology. By 2012, he was working at both Seven Oaks Wellness


Centre and Quarry


Physiotherapy as a kinesiologist and personal trainer.


His son was born in 2013, the same year he added Creekside Physiotherapy to his work load. He held all three jobs until last May. He is now exclusively at Creekside as it allows for less driving and more time for his family. Life invigorates Francois. While his wife left in 2016, he has recovered and is rejuvenated. Today, you can still find Francois walking around on his hands as he’s done for decades. His daughter and son are both enrolled in gymnastics and of course, they can skate. Francoise has learned how to skate and is starting to consult with high school students again. His parents live nearby, his sister is clos- er in Nashville than Pretoria and he has a new love in his life. They occasionally attend Jets games together when they are not working or playing outside with their children. And he is part of a typical blended Canadian family. Aengus Kane was born in Newfound-


land. “Whadda Ya At B’y?” means hello in his home province. He volunteers both behind the scenes and on air at CJNU.


May 2020


The sun-filled, fun-filled day turned into a mud bath.


John Einarson Local Music Spotlight


spilling onto adjacent fields and clogging the roads in and out. Again, like Woodstock, many simply abandoned their cars by the road and walked the remainder of the way. Joey Gregorash kicked things off fittingly with the notorious Fish cheer from Wood- stock (“Give me an F…..”). By the time the fifth act, Chopping Block, prepared to take the stage around 5:30 p.m., the sun had been replaced by clouds. What began as a light sprinkle quickly became a torrent of both rain and hail. The Niverville Pop Festival quickly turned into a mud fest as more than five centime- ters of rain fell on the site. Surpris- ingly, the rain failed to dampen the communal euphoria. Vehicles became mired in acres of thick, wet, sticky mud. As local pro- moter Bruce Rathbone noted, “It took four hours to get four miles through the mud to the highway.” A


Winnipeg transit bus had to be towed out of the mud by a farmer’s tractor. “I’ll never forget seeing farmers with their tractors coming to many, many people’s rescue,” recalls Richard Denesiuk, “and pulling cars out of the muddy fields.” Cars that had been parked in ditches now had water up to their windows. Many simply abandoned their vehicles. Despite initial opposition to a rock festival in his community, a local pastor commandeered a large


farm truck and went out to the muddy site. There he loaded the truck with stranded young people and took them all back to his house in Niverville. His wife fed them, helped dry their clothes or got them a change of clothing, and arranged rides for each one back to their homes in Winnipeg. It was a shin- ing moment for the community. As for me, sporting my girlfriend’s pink raincoat, I spent several hours pushing her little blue Ford through the mud. Spotting my long hair and pink raincoat, three strapping young lads in the car be- hind jump out and exclaim, “We’ll help you, Miss”. Imagine their surprise when they discovered their Miss was a Mister but, nonetheless, they pushed the car until it was able to get a grip in the mud. I left a pair of shoes stuck in that field. I arrived home late in the evening and went straight into a hot bath. The event made the front page of both newspa- pers the following day. It was even the subject of discussion at the provincial legislature when NDP MLA Russ Doern lauded the charitable goal of the event and praised townspeople and local farmers for pitching in when the rain hit. Premier Ed Schrey- er suggested that perhaps the festival ought to be called a “Tractor Rock Festival.” A few days later, festival organizers delivered $8,000 to the head of the Canadian Mennonite Bible College where Derksen attended. Winnipeg General Hospital ultimately purchased an oxygen- ator in Lynne Derksen’s name.


John Einarson is a local music historian and a CJNU volunteer.


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