Lorette family named Official Voyageurs at Festival du Voyageur

The Hutlet family from Lorette will once again represent the joie du vivre at the Festival du Voyageur. This is the second year in a row that the Hutlets have held this honour.

“We’re super excited to be a part of this beautiful festival and this beautiful culture and I’m proud to be French and as a Franco-Manitoban,” said Danièle Hutlet.

Unknowingly, the family was nominated to be the Official Voyageurs by members of the community and were officially asked by the previous Festival family if they would be interested in doing it.

“One of the main things (we do) is to spread the joie du vivre to all Festival goers,” said Philippe Hutlet, who is a distant cousin of Louis Riel. “During the week, we’ll be going to the different schools and seniors homes and retirement centres and stuff to bring some Festival to them and encouraging people to come to the park. And if people come to the park on the weekends they’ll see a lot of us here and there. And we encourage everyone to come and say a big ‘HéHo!’ to us and say, ‘Hi.’ We like meeting people.”

Philippe said Festival means different things to different people. For some it’s a celebration of the language, traditional music, or a winter celebration to make the season go by faster.

“It gives everybody a chance to be proud of being Canadian and Manitoban French-Canadian and celebrate the food too. There’s a lot of traditional foods that people don’t have a chance to taste and it gives the opportunity to try that stuff too,” said Philippe.

“It’s a way for us to share our culture and history with everyone who comes to the festival and that’s really special for us,” said Danièle.

Philippe said if you don’t come to the festival you’re missing out. He said there are new offerings every year and this year is no exception. New this year is a Canadian Military installment honouring the armed forces with a snow sculpture to match.

“People have been coming for years and everybody that comes for their first time says it’s not going to be the last time. We encourage everybody to come enjoy and soak it into yourselves,” he said.

The Hutlets

For more than 20 years, Philippe has worked for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, most recently as a District Chief of Paramedic Operations. For the past few years, he has been very involved with fundraising for provincial and national fiddling and jigging competitions, including those at the Festival du Voyageur. In 2023, he became founding president and treasurer of the Red River Fiddle & Dance Society Inc., a new non-profit organization.

Danièle is the third cousin of famed Manitoba author Gabrielle Roy. She spent a year studying at the Catholic School of Evangelization before attending Collège Universitaire de Saint-Boniface to further her education. She now homeschools her four children. She also assists with fiddle competitions at the national level, creating programs for their annual competition. She is passionate about Canadian history and uses the excuse of homeschooling to justify her collection of books.

Danika, 16, has been fiddling since the age of six and released her first album at the age of 10. She has been invited to compete at the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Competition for the past three years and began teaching fiddle in 2023. Last spring, she joined l’Ensemble Folklorique de la Rivière Rouge as one of their fiddlers.

Élise, 12, enjoys acrylic painting and in 2022 one of her drawings was used to create a trophy for the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association’s national competition. She also plays the fiddle. She is an amateur photographer and hairdresser and enjoys creating miniature houses.

Rémi, 10, started playing the drums at seven years old. He loves catching frogs, watching documentaries about animals and exploring nature with Élise. He loves soccer and his favourite positions with his soccer team are goalkeeper and forward.

Mia, 6, loves reading and math. She loves to sing and started learning the fiddle in 2023 with Danika as her teacher. When she was five years old, she became the youngest fiddler to ever compete at the Manitoba Provincial Fiddling Contest and since then, she continues to compete as much as possible. In her spare time, she loves drawing, crafting, and baking.