A former Steinbach resident is raving about the fireworks competition last weekend in Moosomin, Saskatchewan. Vern Toews, who now lives in Winnipeg, is a choreographer for CanFire Pyrotechnics which is based in Sundown, about 70 kilometres south of Steinbach. He says the competition in Moosomin has been going on for eight years now and this year was extra special.

"As the defending champions, the owner of the company Peter Palmer, decided to invite a company from China to come and compete, so Fire Show from China came out to compete. As lead choreographer for CanFire for this event, I was able to spend an awful lot of time with the Fire Show people. I was able to see some new effects and the way that they did things and it was absolutely phenomenal"

Toews says China ended up winning although the judges said the choice was a difficult one. He notes the Moosomin competition has been growing.

"It was something started by a local fireworks company out of Saskatchewan. They wanted to widen the range and they invited us. We managed to take the title and subsequently, as defending champions, we were able to host China this year."

Toews adds he is already starting to think about next year's competition.

"Your brain is going a million miles a minute because you're thinking of other ways that you can do things and other ways that you can layer effects because fireworks is all about layers. It's not just lighting a shell and letting it go off. It's planning and coordinating it and choosing the music and editing the music down to what you need and then thinking about what kind of effects you want to layer over top of it. Every time I listen to a song I say, oh this would be great for fireworks and I could do this effect here and this effect there and I could do this comet run and it never stops, the brain is always going."

Photo Credit: Bill Allen Photography