Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival – one to check out

Grab your coat, hat, toque and mitts and embrace this weekend's sunny, crisp weather.

Today and tomorrow, the 10th annual Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival pops up at east Edmonton's 118th Ave. with its wonderful pastiche of heritage activities, vibrant entertainment and delicious homemade ethnic foods.

This year's theme is Village Upside Down and participants can expect to see more than a few mind-mangling projects that ask the question, "How did they do that?"

The wide-ranging two-day event covers a broad swath – Ukrainian, francophone, African, Acadian, Scandinavian and indigenous cultures.

Last year Deep Freeze attracted close to 32,000 visitors, in part due to the free admission.

But as St. Albert ice sculptor Barry Collier, a key part of the production team explains, "Festivals go up and then plateau. This festival has plateaued, but it doesn't show any signs of going down. And that's because of the variety of things to do."

He isn't kidding. In just two days festival producer Allison Argy-Burgess, also a St. Albert resident, has packed in stilt walkers, snow sculptures, snowshoeing, deep freeze races, street hockey, roving artists, a Cree Round Dance, an indigenous art display and non-stop entertainment from numerous ethnic groups.

Odin's Ravens, the mead-swilling Vikings; Rwandan dancers and Pow Wow Dancers dial up the energy and athleticism while a more low-key art display of over 100 visual artists including St. Albert's Sharon Moore-Foster are on display at the Nina Haggerty Centre.

To combat hunger pangs, folks can enjoy an aromatic piping hot pig cooked on a spit, tourtiÈre, pea soup, pyrohy, cabbage rolls and kubasa or drop into one of the avenue's ethnic restaurants.

Now in her third year as festival producer, Argy-Burgess is all about "mixing it up" and she's introduced some genuine curiosities. Working with a budget of about $290,000 and some generous sponsors she's been able to create theatrical magic.

This year the festival partnered with Snow Valley to create man-made snow for the snow sculptures carved by Dutch sculptors Wilfred Stijger and Edith van de Wetering.

"Snow Valley brought the machines to Northlands and made a massive pile of snow. Rebel Heart Trucking trucked it over and designed a site for us," said Argy-Burgess.

In previous years the City of Edmonton allowed volunteers to scrape off snow from school fields and parking lots that were trucked to the site. The snow was put in wooden blocks for a few days until it created a hard pack for the sculptors.

"But occasionally we'd find a sandwich poking through the nose or something like that," laughed Argy-Burgess.

Possibly the most dramatic addition this year is an authentic Mongolian Yurt trucked in from Montreal. Weighing 3,800 lbs. (1724 kg.) with a diameter of 38 feet (11.5 metres), it will be located at the Pipon Village. Eight volunteers are required to unpack its two crates and set it up.

"We needed a tent for our indigenous artists. Last year someone donated one, but it was very cold. I felt for the artists. The yurt is our test. If we can set it up and take it down, we might buy it."

A couple of new activities that demand speed and precision combined with a hint of danger are axe throwing, knife throwing and buck sawing, a two-man lumberjack sawing competition.

"It seems terrifying to me, but it's going to be hilarious."

This year the ice carving competition has been temporarily replaced by ice carving demos led by several sculptors including Collier and his working partner Kelly Davies and the two Dutch sculptors.

"I'd like to get the public involved and get them to use the power tools. It wouldn't be any fun otherwise," Collier chuckled. He added they would carve four Canadian animals – a polar bear, eagle, swan and a salmon jumping out of water.

Anyone needing heat can join the Glass House Arts Collective, a Calgary based duo of glass blowers.

"They have a mobile glass blowing studio and they'll be driving up a few days before the festival. It takes 36 hours to heat up their equipment, but at night this is going to be beautiful," noted Argy-Burgess.

Perhaps the newest wacky and whimsical event is Frozen Clothes Project, a nod to our early heritage. Remember how grandma used to wash clothes and hang them on the clothesline to dry? When she unclipped them from the line, they were frozen into weird shapes depending on how the wind was blowing that day.

Well, visual artist Stephanie Medford has dipped clothes in water and glue and posed them into shapes and let them dry into twisted contours.

"This is so Alberta. People love it."

The Arts of Life is a Ukrainian performance group that sings songs and re-enacts stories from the old country.

"They will be on stage in the community hall telling Ukrainian tales in Ukrainian and a translator will be translating simultaneously."

Behind the Alberta Avenue Community Hall, Collier and Davies have carved a delightful ice world with an ice garden, photo corner, skating rink and a ring toss with feet sticking out of the ice.

A favourite activity is the 53-foot slide for older kids and a 12-foot slide for little ones to sample. For the photo corner, Collier has also carved a delicate three-foot spider web with a chair beside it. Say cheese.

At this year's ice bar, Collier is carving an upside down dragon propping up the bar with its four legs. Its tail whips over the top of the bar where bartenders pour drinks down the tail into ice glasses.

And Global TV is sponsoring an ice living room furnished with a TV set, table, couch, chair, end table, lamps and possibly flowers. If you plan to sit on the ice couch for any length of time, bring a butt warmer.

Supported by some of Edmonton's most significant businesses, the festival is now a destination location. But more than a dozen years ago, the Alberta Avenue location was considered a derelict area. For years the area was burdened with a stigma of what artistic director Christy Morin calls "crime and grime."

The east Edmonton community was an older area that had fallen into disrepair attracting drug deals and prostitution. But since real estate values were below the Edmonton average, the area also attracted immigrant merchants selling niche products and young families unable to afford a house in the city's hot market.

A group of resourceful artists and dynamic thinkers, among them Morin, would bump into each other at the community's favourite coffee shop – The Carrot Café. They saw great possibilities for Alberta Avenue and put their imaginations to work and invented Deep Freeze.

"It was a neighbourhood so neglected. Because it was one of Edmonton's oldest neighbourhoods it had a lot of history and charm," said Morin.

Today families that move into the community are what she dubs "homesteaders," beekeepers and couples that are looking for large yards to grow vegetables.

"We have a whole generation of jam makers and crochet artists and it's a perfect fit for the community."

The commitment and passion of Deep Freeze's volunteers has helped to rebrand an entire community. Their efforts inspired numerous other community events such as Serca Festival of Irish Theatre, SkirtsAfire HerArts, the Salvadorian Pupusa Festival, the Bloom Garden Show and numerous other ethnic events.

"We are on our way up. You won't find crime and grime here. You will find beauty, arts and the soul of a community. And we're here to stay."

Although Deep Freeze has free admission, organizers hope visitors will donate a few dollars in person or online to help sustain the festival.

Canada's three levels of government provide grants totalling $160,000, about 55 per cent of the budget. The rest comes from private sponsorship, and corporate or individual donations.

Arts on the Ave, the festival's organizing body, is a registered charity and supplies tax deductible receipts. For more information visit www.deepfreeze.ca.