Extreme cold doesn't deter Winnipeggers from enjoying outdoor activities on Louis Riel Day
The southern half of the province remains locked under an extreme cold weather warning, but that didn't stop many Winnipeggers from braving the bone-chilling temperatures and enjoying Louis Riel Day outdoors.
With many people off work and children out of the classroom, The Forks and Whittier Park — home of the 56th annual Festival du Voyageur — were popular outdoor holiday destinations Monday.
Josh Watt and his family look forward to attending the festival, also known as Winnipeg's winter festival, every year.
"For us, this is almost like Christmas," he said.
"It's a chance to remember our roots, but also to celebrate the future. We love the music, we love the food and, of course, we love the company."
Each dressed in their capot, Watt's family didn't frosty weather, which saw wind chill values dip below –40, and even –50 in some parts of the province early Monday morning.
Watt spent time doing a craft in a tipi with his daughter, hoping to pass down generational wisdom and knowledge.
"It basically taught her about the seven generations that had come before us, as well as the seven generations yet to come, and how important it is to keep that in mind with every decision we make," he said.
Karen Ralcewicz is a teacher who used to teach French at a previous posting. She often brought her students out to the winter festival.
A Festival du Voyageur volunteer for the past decade-plus, she too didn't mind stepping outside on a frigid winter day in Winnipeg.
"I think it gets me out in the winter, just seeing everybody and just being part of the French culture," she said.
Ralcewicz was also dressed in a capot of her own, which features three blankets and an old coat that she estimates took her 10 hours to sew together.
Spending time outdoors in winter breaks the cycle of spending more time inside, she said.
"Being outside in the winter, you know, it is Winnipeg. It is cold but you need to get out there and enjoy it," Ralcewicz said.
Owen Smith was out enjoying the activities at Whittier Park with his mom and little sister on Monday.
The seven-year-old boy is really a big fan of the traditional maple taffy that's eaten off the snow.
"It's just Festival du Voyageur is just really, really fun," he said.
So too is skating along the Nestaweya River Trail with his kids and grandkids, says John Koncan, who is from Huntsville, Ont.
"We visit Winnipeg several times a year. One of the reasons we come is to skate the longest [river] trail in Canada, so we love it," he said.
However, after 40 minutes on the river trail, Koncan admitted it was time to go inside to warm up for a bit.
"We have to. It is just way too cold to stay out there. The wind is so cutting. It's like razors cutting on your cheek," he said.
Holiday closure for popular ski hill
Although there were no new temperature records set Sunday night or Monday, the cold weather prompted the closure of western Manitoba's favourite ski hills.
Asessippi Ski Resort, located near Russell and about 350 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, was forced to close operations Monday due to the extreme cold.
"At 8:00 a.m., it was –50 degrees with the air and the wind chill, and it's just not safe to operate for our staff and our guests at that temperature," said Shannon Johnston, the resort's assistant manager.
Additionally, just one of Asessippi's three aerial chairlifts were open Sunday.
The resort has a cold weather policy in place that's been tweaked over the years, but Asessippi tends to make a decision between noon and 2 p.m. the day before a possible closure so that would-be skiers and snowboarders can alter their plans.
"We never want to close. We never want to let anyone down. We never want to disappoint anyone. But we also need to make sure that we keep everyone safe and happy," Johnson said.
"We look at the weather 100 times a day and it just did not change. In fact, it kept getting colder and colder."
The cold weather also forced the resort to cancel its fireworks show on Sunday, and push back its Rail Warz event one week to this coming Saturday.
The Louis Riel weekend is usually a busy time for Asessippi, but Johnston is looking forward to above-seasonal weather next weekend.
"We are just so looking forward to everyone coming out once the weather turns," she said. "I think we're all tired of this weather and everyone wants to get out of their house. So we are ready for you."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Observer
02-06-2025
- National Observer
Cold days are coming too late, cutting off northerners
A worker uses heavy equipment to clear the Wetum winter road across the Moose River outside Moose Factory First Nation near the James Bay Coast in Northern Ontario. The road, which crosses the frozen Moose River, is a vital link south for the first nation, allowing citizens access to Timmins and the rest of the Ontario highway system. Jesse Winter/ Canada's National Observer You did it. Thank you to the CNO community for supporting The Climate Solutions Reporting Project goal of raising $150,000. Goal: $150k $153k Listen to article Stan Kapashesit grew up in the 1980s on the James Bay coast, and when he was a kid, travelling to see family and friends during Christmas was a given. He'd cross the Moose River over an ice road with his parents, making his way to Moosonee. Looking back, he remembers the road always being ready by early December. This year, that same road didn't open until the very end of December — and even then, it was open only to light loads, not the big trucks that bring supplies to town. After that, the temperatures spiked again, and it could only be crossed by snowmobile for about a week. The road going further south — which connects Moosonee to the provincial highway system and first opened about a decade ago — didn't open until Christmas. It didn't open for New Year's. It didn't open until a month later, the morning of January 29. 'It was open earlier, longer. It was just more accessible. Growing up here, living here, [I'm] just seeing the season get shorter and shorter,' said Kapashesit, while driving over the Moose River, a dusting of white snow trailing his black truck tires. It's a phenomenon First Nations in northern Ontario have long observed. Multiple people interviewed by Canada's National Observer along the James Bay coast in March offered the same observation, which is supported by scientific studies, including an alarming report by the Canadian Climate Institute that found that half of Canada's winter roads will be unusable in 30 years. The roads that connect Moose Cree First Nation to the outside make up a portion of the weaving network of temporary ice roads connecting communities in Ontario to paved, permanent highways. Built up each year over frozen rivers, streams and muskeg, ice roads are vital throughways — food, medicine, fuel and people are all moved along them at a fraction of the price of flying, but their seasons are being squeezed due to rising temperatures caused by climate change. Kapashesit, who is associate executive director of Moose Cree First Nation, says they're exploring the viability of building an all-season road, as is Fort Albany First Nation about 200 km north. Anyone living on the James Bay Coast will tell you: the ice road season has been steadily shrinking over recent decades. In part three of our series on ice roads in the region, we look at the climate context behind the future of ice roads in Ontario. The cost of maintaining the road is inseparable from the pressures of climate change in northern Ontario, and both are mounting in tandem. The federal and provincial governments chip in money to construct and maintain winter roads in the province, but the First Nations who manage them are on the hook for remaining costs. Funding has not caught up to inflation rates. Winter roads are invaluable to the First Nations they connect because they make goods cheaper, but those savings dwindle as the road season shrinks. In Neskantaga First Nation, an isolated community in the middle of the province, its winter road opened a full month earlier between 2008 and 2018: on Dec. 22 compared to Jan. 22. This year, according to updates posted on Facebook, it opened around the same day, on Jan. 19. And while open and closing dates paint a telling picture of the winter road season, another revealing metric is the reduction in very cold days, specifically those -30 degrees Celsius or colder. Frigid conditions are necessary for constructing a road that can bear thousands of pounds, explains Sudbury-based geologist David Pearson — they cause the ice to thicken quickly, and make it safe for road builders to get out on the surface of the road. Canada's National Observer analyzed federal data from five weather stations in Ontario, four of which are in isolated communities that rely on winter roads, and found that there has been a significant reduction in -30 degrees Celsius days in communities that need them to build winter roads. Meanwhile, a slew of climate change-related shifts are making the ice road system untenable, notes a 2023 report by Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN). Not only are warmer days forcing ice road opening dates to be later, but more snow and rain earlier in the winter 'increases water levels and water movement speeds, resulting in slower freeze times of water crossings,' making maintaining the roads more challenging. There isn't one way to define a winter road season as viable, explained Canadian Climate Institute report co-author Ryan Ness. 'It's generally assumed that a winter road is impassable in a particular month if the monthly average temperature is greater than -5 C,' said Ness, who explained that increased temperatures will continue to ratchet up in coming decades, making those months more common. Once there are only a few weeks cold enough to host the road, 'it's not cost-effective anymore to build them for the season,' he said. 'The discussion around an all-season road becomes ... is it more feasible to invest a million dollars every year to build the road that's gonna be open all year round, as opposed to just two months — at most,' said Kapashesit. How many back-to-back, extreme cold days occur in future (what climate scientists refer to as Freezing Degree Days, or FDDs) depends on the amount of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions put into the atmosphere. A study by Climate Data mapped the number of FDDs under a high-emissions scenario. In Moose Cree First Nation, the accumulation of FDDs needed to construct an ice road is expected to arrive much later in the coming decades: by the 2070s, on average, there will be enough FDDs to build an ice road by mid-January, representing a 27-day push forward from the 1980s. A study from York University came to a similar conclusion. It notes the lifespan of one-metre-thick ice required by transport trucks will become much shorter under all warming scenarios. 'For these trucks, our research shows that the number of days of safe ice will decline by 90 per cent with an increase of 1.5 C of global warming,' writes lead author Reader R. Iestyn Woolway. That becomes a 95 per cent decline if the planet warms by 2 C — and a 99 per cent decline with a 3 C global temperature hike. The shrinking season of the Wetum Road and others like it will only continue to dwindle, Pearson said. Ice roads are constructed and authorities gradually let heavier vehicles onto them as the road gets thicker, so the most revealing metric is when the roads open to full loads and can handle deliveries of goods. This year on Feb. 21 — which is supposed to be in the thick of the winter road season — just seven of 33 stretches of winter roads in Ontario were open to full loads, according to an update from Indigenous Services Canada. Using the precautionary principle — a scientific approach that says decisions should be based on the most severe scenario, even if there is uncertainty, due to potential harm — is essential when considering the future of ice roads, Pearson said. 'Using the 90th percentile means that there is no long-term future for winter roads in the North. The future is limited to, I think, sometime in the 2040s — max,' he said. This is story three in a series Canada's National Observer is producing on ice roads in Northern Ontario – in collaboration with I-SEA and The Donner Canadian Foundation. June 2nd 2025 Cloe Logan Journalist @ Keep reading As ice road melts, a First Nation eyes solid ground By Cloe Logan News April 14th 2025 Driving the ice road: a journey along a community's disappearing lifeline By Cloe Logan News April 5th 2025 Wood pulp, steel cables: Scientists study how to make ice roads last longer By Bob Weber News Politics October 15th 2019 Share this article Share on Bluesky Share on LinkedIn Comments
CTV News
24-05-2025
- CTV News
Spray pads now open in Winnipeg as warm weather continues
New spray pad at Corydon Community Centre on May 23, 2024 (X/City of Winnipeg) The city's spray pads are open again for another year. Saturday marked the first day of spray pads being operational around Winnipeg. The majority of spray pads will be in operation every day from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. until September. Winnipeggers will need the weather to warm up a little bit more before the outdoor pools open. The city said heated outdoor pools are expected to open on June 20 and then unheated pools would open on June 27. Wading pools would open shortly after on July 1. More details can be found online.
Winnipeg Free Press
23-05-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Blooms may be delayed by cold weather but plants ‘tougher than the gardeners'
Gardening is always hands on, but Mary Parker is babying her plants a little longer than usual this spring. The longtime gardener — who prefers growing flowers and shrubs to veggies — says New Brunswick's recent cold snap means her seedlings are still spending the night indoors, though she takes them out for some fresh air when temperatures warm up in the afternoon. This is the typical process when growing flowers and veggies from seed, but Parker says her French marigolds, black hollyhock and chamomile sprouts are usually fully outdoors by the time Victoria Day long weekend rolls around. Unseasonably cool weather in many parts of the country is testing the gardening know-how of green thumbs with young plants too fragile for the yard, particularly in Fredericton, where frost covered the ground Thursday morning. 'You've got to get them used to being outside. You just can't take your seedlings and throw them out there. They'll die. You've got to baby them along a little bit until they get used to being in the outside world,' said Parker, vice-president of the Fredericton Garden Club. 'The soil right now is just a little bit too cold.' Temperatures across much of Canada are cooler than usual this week, with chill gripping provinces including Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia. In Parker's province of New Brunswick, there's been a bit of a weather roller-coaster this month, said Jill Maepea, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. Temperatures started off about average at the beginning of May, and then climbed to record highs last week. But this week, Maepea said, a low weather system moved in and brought a cold snap that lingered. It was below freezing this week, and was only 5 C in New Brunswick on Friday morning. Environment Canada predicts a rainy weekend there with temperatures that won't rise above 11 C — a far cry from the average 20 C at this time of year. 'We're seeing a lot of cloud and showers on and off, and some drizzle, which results in the cooler temperatures, too,' she said. That drizzle is also posing a bit of a problem for Parker, who says her lawn is dotted with mushrooms and the bottom leaves on her tulips are 'limp and mushy.' 'Plants don't like to have wet feet. They don't like their roots to stay wet for long periods of time,' she said. Overall, though, she doesn't expect the cold to have a lasting impact. 'Plants are tough,' she said. 'They're used to surviving, and they're probably tougher than the gardeners.' Still, the cold, wet weather came at an inconvenient time for some of Toronto's most avid gardeners. The Garden Club of Toronto held its annual Spring Blooms event on Thursday, and while there were more than a hundred horticultural specimens and floral designs on display, a warmer month would have yielded a richer bounty. Whimsical 'fairy garden' floral designs sat just inside the entrance to the Toronto Botanical Garden's main building, completed by students in one of the club's classes. Each one was a miniature scene — fairy and gnome figurines the size of a thumbnail were arranged in a shallow pot among rooted plants that towered over them like lush trees and shrubs. Further inside the show, houseplants and cut flowers were displayed in unobtrusive pots and small glass vases, each labeled with its scientific and common name. 'Our horticultural exhibits behind us are not nearly as plentiful at the moment as they were last year, just because May has been so cold,' said Diana Kennedy, who chairs the show. 'You know, a lot of the plants have not matured yet, so they're all shivering out there along with the rest of us.' Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said Ontario was subject to a stubborn weather system that left it with dreary climes for more than a week. He said Ontario's stubborn weather system is expected to bring cooler temperatures until midday Sunday. The snap included Toronto's coldest March 22 since 1967, only reaching 10.1 C. Coulson expected cooler temperatures to continue until midday Sunday, but said would-be gardeners might consider holding off planting until early June, just to be safe. Martha Huffman, chair of the Toronto club's horticultural committee, said the rain was more of an inconvenience than anything. 'People who were thinking ahead cut (their flowers) yesterday morning before it rained,' she said Thursday afternoon, as a steady rain drummed on the roof over her head. Wednesdays A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future. 'People like me, who were running around like crazy helping to get this show set up — I got home at 5:30 last night and had to go out in the pouring rain and cut my couple of things that were in bloom.' While the blossoms didn't droop in the rain, she said they may not have reached their full potential. 'Because the temperatures have been cool, and we haven't had as much sun as usual, things maybe aren't as big and as lush,' she said. 'But we can't control the weather, so we use what we have.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 23, 2025.
