Pineview Community Hall crowd enjoys country music. Photo 250 News

Prince George, B.C. – The inaugural Roots Music Festival in Pineview has turned out to be a raging success with one day yet to go.

The festival is hosted by the Peyak Li Moond Metis Society and Director  Rose Bortolon,  along with President Shawn Bellamy, Vice-president Bonnie Gunton and Rene Therrien from Terrace organized it and lined up  sponsors, a team of 15 volunteers and nine bands.  The Roots Music Festival features country, bluegrass, gospel and fiddle tunes and if anyone asks for it they’ll do requests.

Therrien says “I’ve been attending music festivals for the last ten years and Prince George hasn’t had too much of that.  I’ve been helping with Terrace the last two years, we have one at McLeese Lake hosted by the Metis and we thought Prince George would be an excellent place.  We got together in May and with volunteers and funding from the merchants we put it on.”

Therrien says it’s hoped enough money will be raised through this event to open an office for the Peyak Li Moond Metis community as well as provide instruction to young fiddlers.  Bortolon adds “some of the money is being used to pay for the musicians.  We’ve had sponsors to pay for the (Pineview Community) hall and we have a caterer from Hixon.  And we have insurance, we have different things that we have to pay for so everything is accounted for and whatever is left over will be for our society.  We’re hoping to host this again next year.”

Bortolon says “we really appreciate the musicians who come because the money that we’re paying isn’t very much but it does pay for their gas.  We’re very thankful because they come from Terrace, Quesnel, Mud River and a lot from Prince George.  And we appreciate the volunteers who’ve been helping us put this together.  It’s been a lot of work, but it’s fun!”

The festival resumes at 9:30 this morning with an hour of gospel music and wraps up at 3 this afternoon.