For many small Saskatchewan communities they have developed a key not only fundraising event or weekend but also a pride and spirit up reaching event as well.

For the Town of Lake Lenore, they have managed to develop two important initiatives in their community, they have their annual Heat Wave weekend in the midst of Summer, but in January of every year they hold their Smoker and a week later the lake will be speckled with shacks for the annual Lions' Derby which drew over 525 teams in 2015.

Saturday at the Smoker, local Lions President and Wildlife committee member Tim Prodahl explained how popular the Smoker has become which is held at the town hall.

"The Smoker, that started many years ago, the local bar owner Joe Pronych got that started. It got so big he couldn't handle it anymore and then a little bit of health issues here and there so we decided to move it down to here. It's become a really unique little venture for us, a real good fundraiser."

A group of volunteers bundle up, brave the elements and smoke whitefish all day, the fish is free and they encourage donations however their raffles, 50/50 draws and the cash bar all raise considerable funds for the hall, the Lions' Club and the Wildlife Federation.

Now that the Smoker is over, focus turns to next Saturday's(Jan. 16) derby.

Prodahl says that has become a Saskatchewan wide event with their lake growing in popularity.

"We've been fortunate there that we've got a lot of community members here helping out, it takes over 40 people to run that. It's just fantastic, it has turned over really well and the fishing public really appreciate it. We get a lot of good comments about how we run our derby and we're really happy about that."

You can register by calling Alan at Horizon Fertilizers at 306-368-2338. They will accept registrations the morning of but they do recommend entering ahead of time to speed up the process.

You can hear much more from Prodahl below in his interview with Bolt FM's Clark Stork below.