Snow shortfall forces Festival du Voyageur to make its own

It's tough to call yourself Western Canada's largest winter festival without snow, and a lack of it this winter has forced the Festival du Voyageur to turn to fake flakes to make sure this year's festival goes ahead as planned.

With not enough snowfall in Winnipeg in December and January, organizers have worked out a deal to purchase man-made snow just in time for the festival's start next month.

"We have a partnership with someone in St. Adolphe who has a snow cannon," said Nicolas Audette, Festival du Voyageur's manager of marketing and communications. "They're making the snow out there and we're then hauling it in for our snow sculptures around the city." 

Some of the snow will also be used at the festival's grounds to build things like the walls around the ice bar and for the snow sculpting symposium, an event that attracts teams of snow sculptors from around the world.

"There just wasn't enough snowfall so far this winter, so we had to make our own," said Audette.

This isn't the first time the festival has faced a snowfall shortfall.

"It happens every so often… when there's not enough snow on the ground we have to start looking for solutions."

Got snow?

In the past, a lack of snow led organizers to raid large snow piles around the city, but that wasn't an option this year.

"Sometimes there's areas of the city where snow actually piles up depending on the wind and the conditions," Audette said. "This year we looked all around the city, tried to find those sweet spots with a lot of snow, but there really wasn't anything for us."

The festival expects to bring in roughly 200 truckloads of snow for this year's festival.

"Snow is a big part of what we do," he said. "We have a lot of outdoor activities. We have the sleigh rides, we have the slides, we have the kids' activities outside in the snow, and of course we have the snow sculptures, which are the cornerstone of the festival."

Last year, warm weather in February led to problems at the festival as sculptures melted and large puddles of water covered the festival grounds.

Audette said no matter what Winnipeg's climate throws at organizers, the festival will carry on.

"Every couple of years we have these weird weather conditions that we have to deal with and we're always trying to have a Plan B in place in case Mother Nature doesn't co-operate."

The Festival du Voyageur runs Feb. 16 to 25.