Heave ho The muscles behind Festival du Voyageur are ‘governed by the snow’ and cold, but show must, and always does, go on Behind the Scenes
By: Eva Wasney Posted: 5:57 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/02/2025 (536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Earthy, fresh and inviting. The aromatic wood chips blanketing the interior of venues at Festival du Voyageur are a key part of the comfort and sensory experience of the winter event.

And at Whittier Park, the 400 yards of chips don’t just fall where they may.

Beginning in December, Festival’s site staff are spending long frosty days at the St. Boniface park building the infrastructure for the two-week francophone music and culture festival, which kicks off Friday.

Compared to a summer festival, the Festival’s cold presents an added health and safety challenge for those working outdoors behind the scenes. Operation manager Dustin Linklater may be in charge of the seasonal team of 20 or so people, but it’s often the forecast calling the shots.

“We don’t take days off,” says Linklater. “We’ve got to roll with the punches and accommodate and plan and prioritize because there’s always production, even if it’s minus 47 C or plus 3 C.”

In extreme temperatures, staff — dressed in hi-vis jackets and insulated overalls — work in 15-minute intervals and take frequent breaks in a small heated shack on site.

There are about 30 temporary structures to build in Parc du Voyageur, from music tents and security stations to fire pits and a snow playground, and “a million other things,” says Linklater.

While some jobs require heavy equipment and outside contractors, most are completed with people power.

Hé Ho? More like Heave Ho.

During a cold and sunny late-January visit, a dozen crew members are hoisting the Tente Forest — the last of the four large concert tents — into place.

It’s slow, meticulous work to raise the 6,000-square-foot tent. First, 50 to 60 heavy-duty stakes are drilled into the frozen ground, carefully to avoid hitting the power and natural gas lines running underground.

Next, the perimeter poles are strapped and erected, followed by the tall centre posts, which are hiked up and adjusted one by one until the whole system is taut and vertical.

Snow cascades off the white canvas roof while the group below grunts and grumbles. Mitted high-fives are exchanged when the tent frame is standing unassisted.

Though the smell of wood chips is the first thing to hit your nose when heading in from the cold, they are one of the last pieces of the puzzle when constructing a tent. After the roof is raised, the walls are attached and the wooden stages and bar platforms are moved into place.

At long last, the chips are scooped out of large central piles by a skid steer operator, dumped inside the tents and raked out to an even ground cover.

The chips — which are made of run-of-the-mill shredded lumber sourced from a local landscaping company — are piled high to help insulate from the cold ground.

“It’s absorbing all the ice and snow people track in so nobody slips inside a venue and gets hurt. And they just smell nice too,” Linklater says.

The tents are heated by natural gas-powered blowers, some of which are turned on a week before the gates open to keep cold-sensitive equipment from freezing.

During the festival, Linklater and the site crew stay busy with maintenance, equipment deliveries and general support. Once the event wraps up on Feb. 23, the team spends two weeks tearing everything down and converting Whittier Park back to a public green space.

“I basically live here,” he says with a laugh.

Although he does take some time to enjoy the festival himself. Linklater, who has a background in oil and gas, moved to Winnipeg from Ottawa a decade ago. His first visit to Festival du Voyageur had him hooked.

“I was like, ‘Wow, how do I get in on this?’ It was nice to be able to connect with my French-Canadian culture and the people are great,” he says.

Linklater gets an extra kick out of seeing festival-goers using the park he and his colleagues have spent weeks building.

“I love it because we get to see the fruits of our labours. When the guys see people having a good time, children smiling, laughing and sliding around, it really is food for the soul,” he says.

Visitors to Parc du Voyageur will notice some new attractions this year, including:

• L’shed à Léo, an exhibit of historic festival memorabilia curated by Léo La Tuque, the organization’s supersized red mascot;
• a beverage shack and outdoor lounge with bonfires;
• and self-guided tours of Fort Gibraltar outlining the trading history, jobs and past residents of the former North West Company stronghold.

“The tours are a really great way for people to interact with the fort in a different way,” Festival executive director Breanne Lavallée-Heckert says of the QR-code tours. “We’re always trying to think of new ways to encourage the younger generation to be interested in and curious about history.”

Snow sculptures have returned to the park and boulevards around Winnipeg for the first time since 2023.

After last year’s suboptimal snowfall, festival staff were watching the Doppler with bated breath and decided last month there was enough white stuff to support the tradition.

The uncertainty of conditions is another challenge for the winter festival, the planning for which usually begins in early September.

“Even if we plan something a certain way, we have to have plan A, B, C and D just in case,” Lavallée-Heckert says.

“We have a lot of members of our team who have been with the festival for 15, 20 years, so we have a lot of institutional knowledge, but we really are governed by the snow.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

 

Event Preview

Festival du Voyageur
Whittier Park, 836 Rue St. Joseph
Feb. 14 to 23
Tickets, passes and full entertainment lineup at heho.ca.

OPENING WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS

Friday
Tente Forest: CEC, Taylor Janzen, Tired Cossack, Tinge, Fold Paper

Saturday
Terrasse à chansons: Brad Moggie et Serge Carrière, Nicolas Messner, Morgan Grace, Miguel Sorin, Bush Lotus, Ash Halo & Friends

Sunday
Tente Rivière Rouge: Slow Leaves, Emerging Musician Program, Ami Cheon, Dwayne Gretzky

Monday
Cabane à sucre Caisse Groupe Financier: La Belle Époque, Alex Kusturok, Alexandre Tétrault Band, Nicolas Messner, Ça Claque

(The grounds are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Louis Riel Day)

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