Festival du Voyageur (mostly) returns to outdoors

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This article was published 20/01/2022 (1643 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Festival du Voyageur will once again brave the winter air next month.

Organizers believe their preparations will allow festival-goers and volunteers to enjoy the annual outdoor event safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic (and its Omicron variant) when it takes place Feb. 18-27.

“It’s been a long pandemic, people have gotten vaccinated and people are looking forward to in-person activities in a safe way as much as possible,” executive director Darrel Nadeausaid Thursday.

Festival 2022 — the 53rd edition of the winter carnival that celebrates French-Canadian, Métis and Indigenous cultures in Manitoba — will include outdoor activities at Fort Gibraltar, as well as virtual shows and events to be enjoyed at home.

Festival Park — the organizers’ name for the St. Boniface-based Fort Gibraltar — will be open during the day for family events such as viewing ice and snow sculptures, a children’s playground and toboggan slide, sleigh rides, food vendors and the having some of the festival’s sugary treat: maple taffy.

How many people will be allowed on the grounds is dependent on the province’s COVID-19 regulations.

“We’d normally be selling tickets now, but this year we’re going to be selling tickets much closer to the festival,” Nadeau said, noting the province’s public health orders currently extend until Feb. 1, so organizers are waiting to hear about indoor and outdoor attendance restrictions.

Festival du Voyageur had to be enjoyed from the safety of electronic device screens in 2021, owing to the pandemic and government restrictions against public gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Organizers recorded several videos focused on French-Canadian and Indigenous culture, meal and cocktail kits that could be enjoyed at home, and livestreamed concerts on the festival’s social-media channels.

More of the same is planned for 2022, and Manitoba-based artists such as Rayannah, Sierra Noble, Ila Barker, Les Surveillantes and Jocelyne Baribeau are scheduled to perform at the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre. The shows will be filmed to be shown the next day on websites such as YouTube and Facebook.

Live audiences will be welcome if provincial health orders allow it come festival time, but Nadeau said the performances and beer gardens that drew large audiences to Fort Gibraltar in the past will have to wait.

“The large tent concerts we’d have, the late-night concerts, are probably the least safe activities in the pandemic and we recognize that.”

A new addition to the festival this year is boîte à chansons (music box in French) a six-metre-wide mobile concert trailer with a huge window that will allow for a four-piece band to perform at Fort Gibraltar during the day and at The Forks in the evening, while keeping musicians separate from audiences.

“It’s very much a plug-and-play kind of mobile concert thing, with a built-in sound system and a soundboard and outlets for musicians,” Nadeau said.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @AlanDSmall