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CVMISS hosts harvest festival

The Comox Valley Multicultural and Immigrant Support Society (CVMISS) is once again holding a harvest festival in the Comox Valley.

The Comox Valley Multicultural and Immigrant Support Society (CVMISS) is once again holding a harvest festival in the Comox Valley.

You are invited this Saturday to the Elks Hall in Courtenay at 6:30 p.m.

The evening will start with a potluck dinner, so if you plan to attend, start thinking about a harvest festival food from your country of origin that you can contribute to the buffet table. Everyone coming should bring a food contribution large enough to feed their own family.

After a multicultural harvest dinner, music will be provided by the Black Swan Fiddlers and dancing for the whole family.

Almost every country celebrates a harvest festival during the fall around the harvest moon. In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving, in many Asian countries they celebrate the Moon Festival, and in Germany they celebrate Oktoberfest.

These and many other harvest festivals celebrated around the world with different names and dates, but most are designed to celebrate with family and give thanks for the bounty of the harvest.

The Celtic harvest festival is called Samhain, which is Gaelic for "summer's end."  It is the third and final harvest was considered the most important of the ancient Celtic feasts.

In the agricultural year, Samhain also marked the first day of winter, when the herders led the cattle and sheep down from their summer hillside pastures to the shelter of the stable.

It was a joyous time of family reunion, when all members of the household worked together baking, salting meat, and making preserves for the winter feasts to come.

The Black Swan Fiddlers are a Celtic band that plays traditional Irish tunes, foot-tapping jigs and reels, along with soulful Irish ballads. The band has been keeping the traditional Celtic music tradition alive and well in the Comox Valley for five years.

Tickets are available at Laughing Oyster Bookshop.

For more information or to reserve tickets that you can pick up at the door, call Jin at 250-898-9567 or e-mail cvmiss@gmail.com.

— Comox Valley Multicultural and Immigrant Support Society