Celebration of Snow and Spirit
February 17, 2009
This past weekend The Festival du Voyageur began its 10 day run in Winnipeg at Fort Gibraltar. Monday was a day off for many Manitobans, thanks to our new provincial holiday, Louis Riel Day.
The day was about as perfect a winter’s day as one can expect, with temperatures keeping it cold enough to keep snow in place and ice in form and with a beautiful Manitoba blue sky stretching from here to eternity.
These days, with the sun just that much higher in the sky, I can sometimes feel a sprinkling of warmth settle on my cheeks when out and about. That, in itself , is reason to celebrate.
The combination of a free day and plenty of sunshine brought the people out to the popular festival in droves. Roland and I were but two of them.
Founded in 1969 by a group of Saint-Boniface entrepreneurs, this once three-day event, held in Winnipeg’s French Quarter, has evolved into a 10-day province-wide celebration of sights, sounds, snow and spirit. Dubbed “The World’s Largest Kitchen Party”, Festival du Voyageur celebrates the joie de vivre of the fur traders, who established the Red River Colony and the ever-growing French-Canadian community in Western Canada. (source)
Much of the emphasis of this festival is on the beauty of winter, as well as on the history, times and music of the those voyageur days.
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The snow sculpture contest is one of the many highlights. Gigantic ice and snow sculptures dominate much of Voyageur park. Contenders come from all over the world to compete. This year artists came from Finland, Chili, Germany, and even Guatemala and Venezuela. The detail put into these works of art is breath taking.
A week ago, with our early February thaw, these beautiful works of art were in danger of incompletion, but thankful ‘Old Man Winter’ gave us another, although gentler go, and the results are quite something to see.
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Being such a near perfect winter’s day, the kids were out in droves… big ones, little ones, with sleds being the main means of transportation. Smiles and rosy cheeks were everywhere.
Yes.. sometimes winter is a good thing. :-)
