Not just fiddlin’ around After two abbreviated editions, Festival du Voyageur is back with more music, more sculptures and more Métis representation By: Eva Wasney Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023 Last Modified: 10:08 PM CST Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023 Updates

Hé Ho! And full steam ahead. The mood inside Fort Gibraltar was positively giddy on Tuesday morning as Festival du Voyageur organizers unveiled the program for the first full-scale event in three years.

Over the last two years, the francophone music and cultural festival was forced online and outdoors to accommodate public health measures and new COVID-19 variants. The 54th annual winter celebration will be one for the record books, according to festival executive director Darrel Nadeau.

“We’re excited not just to reopen, but to reopen in a bigger and better way,” Nadeau says. “We spent three years brainstorming: what we can do to improve and what can we do differently? What can we add? And we’re really looking forward to delivering that.”

Improvements include more music, plenty of snow and better crowd control. The festival, which runs Feb. 17 to 26 at Parc du Voyageur and venues across St. Boniface, will feature 200 local and national musical acts — 50 more than the 2020 edition — more snow sculptures thanks to an accumulation of the white stuff and tents with larger capacity.

To avoid long outdoor lineups in subzero temperatures, organizers have implemented timed ticketing on weekends with passes available for daytime access between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and evening access from 6 p.m. to midnight.

“Timed ticketing is something people got used to during the pandemic,” Nadeau says. “It’s going to help us better manage the flow of festivalgoers and the capacity to make sure everyone gets a spot in a heated tent.”

“Timed ticketing is something people got used to during the pandemic… It’s going to help us better manage the flow of festivalgoers and the capacity to make sure everyone gets a spot in a heated tent.”–Darrel Nadeau

Interactive events and installations are a major focus this year. In addition to perusing the large carvings created during the International Snow Sculpture Symposium, attendees will be able to climb inside a series of large snow animals for selfies and views of the festival grounds. Patrons will also be able to take part in ice-sculpting, bead-making and woodworking workshops.

The boîte à chansons (music box in French), the festival’s mobile concert trailer, returns this year as an outdoor patio within the park, allowing musicians to perform outside in a heated venue while crowds keep warm around a bonfire. The trailer will also be stationed at The Forks from Feb. 3 to 5 for a series of free concerts featuring Terra Lightfoot, Harpoonist with Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar and violinists Jane and Kyle.

French-Canadian artists headlining the festival include Louis-Jean Cormier, Marie-Pierre Arthur and Édith Butler, as well as local francophone acts Kelly Bado, Andrina Turenne, Jérémie and the Delicious Hounds and Ça Claque. The musical lineup will also feature sets by Boy Golden, Olivia Lunny, Joey Landreth, Roman Clarke, Tom Jackson, Susan Aglukark and the Duhks.

In recent years, Festival has made efforts to become more inclusive of Indigenous communities and recognize the role of voyageurs and the fur trade in colonization. The 2023 event will see more than 50 Indigenous musicians featured onstage and artwork from 15 visual artists installed and projected throughout the grounds.

“We just feel really lucky that people are trusting us with sharing their culture,” says Barney Morin, Festival’s Indigenous initiatives co-ordinator.

Patrons will be able to listen to stories in Indigenous languages onsite and gather around the Infinity Fire, a large fire pit decorated in Métis motifs by local artist Candace Lipischak. On Louis Riel Day, Feb. 20, there will be a beading circle and Métis parade throughout the grounds led by fiddlers and musicians.

“It’s a chance to see Métis people being proud of who they are — which, for many Manitobans, it wasn’t always the case,” says Morin, whose grandmother hid her Métis roots for most of her life.

“We just feel really lucky that people are trusting us with sharing their culture.”–Barney Morin

This year will see the return of festival staples, such as the fiddling and jigging contest, beard-growing competition, pea soup contest and the voyageur games. Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain on Provencher Boulevard will serve as the after hours Après Festi location and The Riverside: Tap and Table on St. Mary’s Road has joined on as an official Festival site, offering live music and karaoke.

The festival grounds will be fully licensed in the evenings (and within tents during the day), allowing patrons to sip Caribou, a port-like French-Canadian liqueur, from ice glasses anywhere in the park. Festival has also partnered with Nonsuch Brewing to create a special Festi Broue Lager.

Visit the festival’s website for a full lineup of events and to purchase tickets.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney

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Eva Wasney
Arts Reporter

Eva Wasney is a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.

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