Crows in Bragg Creek will be trembling in fear throughout October, as the hamlet prepares to hold its annual scarecrow festival. The yearly Bragg Creek Scarecrow Festival (BCSF) is a scarecrow-judging contest that kicks off the first Friday in October and wraps up the first Sunday in November. Now in its sixth year, the BCSF offers the hamlet’s residents the chance to get creative and show off their scarecrow-making skills. The event’s organizer, Stacia Hemmett, said past years have seen as many as 151 scarecrows lining the streets of Bragg Creek. “We’re a very artsy community, so it allows people to show a different form of art,” she said. Hemmett, who owns a business in the Bragg Creek shopping centre, said she and a friend came up with the idea in early 2013. Their goal was to help attract visitors to the hamlet during the lull in business between the back-to-school shopping period and the Christmas-shopping period. “By the end of September, it just dies off here and doesn’t kick in until mid-November,” she said. “We were brainstorming about what we could do to get people coming out and create a buffer zone for the stores and merchants, to create some activity here to get people to keep coming.” But the inaugural festival almost didn’t happen, according to Hemmett, after the June 2013 floods ravaged the community. “We almost went, ‘Forget it, everyone is busy trying to get their lives back in order,’” she said. “I don’t know why, but we decided to go ahead with it, anyways.” Following the flood, Hemmett said, the inaugural festival became a way for the community to rally together. “It switched gears, becoming not just something to draw people out for the businesses, but a fun thing for the community to do…after the flood,” she said. “After several months of muck and mud, I thought everyone needed a break and something fun and frivolous.” From Oct. 5 to Nov. 4, dozens of scarecrows will line some of Bragg Creek’s main streets, including Balsam and White Avenues, as well as West Bragg Creek Road. The scarecrows are judged in seven categories – scariest, best human, best animal, cutest, best multiple-character-display, best celebrity look-alike and overall favourite. “Most of them have straw, but they don’t have to be,” Hemmett said. “It can be two sticks dressed up with a head and a hat – anything that’s unusual and scarecrow-like.” Hemmett said the contest has become a popular tradition in Bragg Creek, with hundreds of residents taking part by either making the scarecrows or judging them. “It took off like a shot,” she said. “The whole community jumped on board.” People interested in judging the scarecrows this year can pick up judging sheets from a handful of local businesses, according to Hemmett, which will be announced on the BCSF’s Facebook page. The judging period for the festival runs Oct. 12 to 28, she said, adding the winning scarecrows in each category will have ribbons pinned onto them for the final week of the festival.
