August 15-19, 2018
Red River Exhibition Park, Winnipeg, MB

454 fiberglass trailers (including one Chinook) registered

420 fiberglass trailers (including one Chinook) attended (321 bolers)

930 participants (from 10 Canadian provinces and 23 US States)

1800+ public attended Saturday

What do these numbers represent? The gathering of molded fiberglass enthusiasts for the 50^th anniversary of the boler trailer!

Ian Giles of Calgary, Alberta spent roughly 4 years organizing this historic event. Along with his wife, Joan, he worked tirelessly to create a memorable experience for all. Please visit myboler.com for detailed information and media coverage.

There were 6 snowball caravans arriving from points in Canada (West A, West B, and East) and the US (West, East, and South), with campgrounds along the way. Unfortunately, we didn’t join an official caravan because we were volunteering and arrived a day early. However, we had our own little caravan of 6 rigs arriving early. We met in Regina, SK, where we were treated to a wonderful dinner and driveway camping at Brenda Williams’ house. Then, the 6 of us headed east to Winnipeg.

Heidi, Brenda, JJ & Donna, Don & Glorie, us, Sheila

pit stop in Indian Head

Almost there!

We were the first arrivals on Tuesday. We set up camp, toured the grounds, and met the other volunteers as they arrived.

Sheila, Brenda, and Heidi are first in their section

Hey where is everyone? We’re the first in the generator section

That evening, we had an orientation by Ian, and then it was Show Time!

The first caravan arrived Wednesday at 10 am. Now that was a sight to see! A quarter of a mile of bolers! Spirits were high in the extreme heat. There was lots of cheering and honking. Paul was on parking duty for the first caravan. Ian arranged for specific parking areas: electrical, generators, groups, and general. Then, the participants were parked accordingly. There were only a few hiccups. Since there were waves of trailers arriving, Paul stayed parking people all day. His shift was supposed to be only 2 hours, but everyone was so excited that most of the first shift kept working and helping out the next shifts.

One wave in the first Western Canadian caravan

Arrival of the Eastern Canadian caravan:

Arrival of the Eastern Canadian caravan

The Scholar Hauler (see more below)

Yes, that’s a boler!

The party was on!

One of these things is not like the others

We had some new manufacturers in attendance such as Oliver Travel Trailers, Armadillo Trailers, and Happier Camper. Sadly, Airstream did not send a NEST, though they had been invited. If our current Airstream is ever written off like our previous one was, we would definitely consider getting an Oliver. What a sweet trailer! It has some serious features for full-time living. The only drawback is the wet-bath.

Armadillo Trailers:

basement storage slides out for easy access

Oliver Trailers:

Here come the Olivers from Tennessee

Optional composting toilet

Happier Camper:

We started our days with ukulele lessons by Long and McQuade and then the seminars began. We had seminars on topics such as boondocking, batteries & solar, sewing cushion covers & curtains, and photography, and there were also guest speakers as well as nightly entertainment.

Even Randy Janes from Create Café in Saskatoon presented his 3-D printed trailer prototype. We have known Randy for about 14 years. He sold us our first Airstream. He is a long-time fiberglass trailer owner, and since he dealt with so many customers in sales, he knew what people wanted in a trailer, so he set out to create the world’s largest 3-D printer and printed a trailer! It is just a prototype, but it is the future of manufacturing.

prototype

scale model

On Thursday evening, we were treated to a wine and cheese social sponsored by Bothwell Cheese. They brought 500 lbs of cheese for the 930 participants! The family that owns Bothwell Cheese also owns a boler and they parked it for the event too. If you are buying cheese for yourself, choose Bothwell! They are such a generous company.

Mayor of Winnipeg welcomes us

Bothwell preparing the cheese trays

Saturday was the Trailer Open House from 10am-3pm. It was open to the public, who paid $10 per person to attend. Over 1800 people attended! We weren’t sure that anyone would want to view our Chinook, but we had a steady stream. Some wrote down all the information about it so that they could search for one too. At 2pm, we shut our door so that we could run quickly and see a few trailers we had to see. Unfortunately, we didn’t see nearly enough. This was a HUGE event. But, here are a few highlights:

There was always a line-up at the Yellow Submarine (1968 boler)

Eriba Puck

Pysanka boler (Ukrainian Easter egg)

Oxygen

Biod from The Netherlands:

Scholar Hauler:

double take!

Under the “hood” of the boler is a bbq disguised as an engine

Yes, it has a fireplace

Ron Schellenberg, the genius

I’ll take this circus and its monkeys!

Special thank you to Ian Giles, the volunteers, and participants for making this such a memorable event. If you are looking for special boler trailer parts or gifts, check out Ian’s shop: campingtreasures.com.