The Boissevain Chamber of Commerce is soon to launch a new initiative to promote local tourism, called ‘The Boissevain Adventure Challenge’. 

Chamber member and co-creator, Betty Sawatzky, says the idea came from a visit to the City of Whitehorse in the Yukon. 

“I had spent a couple of summers up in the Yukon and a bunch of us joined in on their tourism passport which inspired you to visit all the different sites in and around the city,” explains Sawatzky. “Each page had a brief outline of that particular site, and either you got your page stamped or signed.  And then, after you filled in as many pages as you could, you brought your passport to the tourism office to be validated.  If you could complete the entire booklet, you would receive a small nugget of gold in keeping with the Yukon theme.  It was a lot of fun!” 

“Of course, the only gold we have here in the prairies of Manitoba is wheat, oats and canola – and dandelions,” she laughs.  “But we do have Chamber Bucks here in Boissevain and so that will be our prizing in allotments of $100, $200 or $300, depending on how much of the booklet is complete. The last day to enter is Labor Day weekend Monday, and we'll draw our winners the next day."

The ‘Boissevain Adventure Challenge’ shares museums and special historical sites throughout the downtown area, as well as 11 of the painted outdoor wall murals scattered through town.  Bite-sized portions of information are on each page describing a bit of that site’s history, as well as a trivia question at the bottom of the page. 

“Lorraine Houston, from the Recorder, and I both had a lot of fun brainstorming which sites we should include in this year’s booklet,” Sawatzky notes. “For the first year I think we did pretty good.  Next year we would include more sites to visit, but this is a great start!”  

“The Adventure Challenge is for all ages, families, residents and visitors to Boissevain,” adds Sawatzky.  “The fun part is you have to actually go to the site in order to answer the question.  Once you have as many of the questions complete as you can, simply bring it to the Goodon Wildlife Museum (where Tommy Turtle stands) and enter into the draw for Chamber Bucks.  The draw will take place in early September after the long weekend, and we’ll be contacting all the winners.  There’s over $1000 of Chamber Bucks to be won, so we’re pretty excited!” 

Multiple names will be drawn and winnings can be redeemed at all Boissevain Chamber members’ businesses.   

“This is a great way to share all the wonderful things to see and learn about, here in Boissevain!” says Sawatzky. “We had a lot of fun putting this together and we hope folks will have as much fun participating!”