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Stretch Goal: Picnic Blankets and Election Integrity

stretch goal: Nobody knows exactly how one of Montreal's signature cultural events got started, according to an ethnologist who has studied the festival and says it could be celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, according to National Observer. Support the Election Integrity Reporting Project! Fight disinformation with facts. Named for the drum beats that characterize its soundtrack, the bohemian gathering has become a must-visit for tourists as well as locals, who dance, play or lie on picnic blankets to the sound of dozens of beating drums. We did it! Help us make our stretch goal of 80,000 by midnight Wednesday!Goal 75,000 77,082Donate But while Monique Provost says there are several theories, she admits it's hard to know where the truth lies. Hill's ensuing hundred drummers workshop drew curious crowds and formed the basis of the signature Montreal event, according to Provost, who wrote her doctoral thesis on the history of djembe in Quebec. According to some who have spoken to Provost, the event began in 1979 when Don Hill, a now-deceased street musician, plastered signs around town looking for 100 people who played the djembe, a goblet-shaped West African hand drum, for a drum circle on Mount Royal. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.