Frozen family fun at Deep Freeze Festival

Today and tomorrow, a fun-loving rabble of horned Viking raiders once again overrun the eighth annual Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival.

The Alberta Avenue festival, located between 90th and 94th St. on 118 Ave., is a great excuse for a winter outing.

Brought back by popular demand, The Return of the Vikings theme is a varnished version of the mighty warriors who terrorized the coasts of Ireland and Scotland and were inducted as gatekeepers to Constantinople.

The festival revisits the intrepid adventurers’ exploits through a Viking encampment, ice sculptures of fire-breathing dragons, a snow sculpture of the dead travelling to Valhalla, stilt walker warriors and general merriment.

“Vikings have a habit of returning if they like a place,” said Christy Morin, executive director of Arts on the Ave, a non-profit, grassroots-based organization dedicated to cultivating the region’s artistic community. It organizes both the Deep Freeze Festival and the Kaleido Arts Festival in September.

“We are delighted the Vikings are returning. They bring a richness and vitality to the area with family friendly activities.”

And if Vikings are not enough to whet the appetite, Vancouver-based Trollsons are here with a polar bear on stilts and reindeer.

“Their whole act is based on fantasy. Although they are in costume, they are not scary to kids and the way they interact is very enjoyable,” noted festival director Allison Argy-Burgess.

This is the St. Albert visual artist’s first turn helming the programs and she has packed the two-day event with a multicultural kaleidoscope of activities that include Ukrainian dancers, British style mummers, medieval knights, Chinese lion dancers, francophone singers and Taiko drummers.

In addition to Odin’s Ravens, a historical Viking reenactment group, Argy-Burgess has expanded Pipon Village, meaning Winter Village in the Cree language.

The Aboriginal village celebrates The Spirit of the Bear and offers a series of craft workshops, snowshoe activities, winter sports, arts demos, storytelling and traditional food such as jam, bannock and moose stew.

A new addition this year, said Argy-Burgess, is an inflatable iglu about 27 feet high and 53 feet wide imported from Quebec. The heated iglu will house a 53-foot wide stage for a variety of entertainment. Seating capacity at any given time is about 50 people.

“And on Saturday night after the fireworks, we’ll be showing the movie Frozen. Adults say it’s wonderful and the kids know all the songs.”

Dutch snow sculptors Edith van de Wetering and Wilfred Steijger, who in 2014 created a massive helmeted Viking head arising from the Earth, return to create life-size Valkyrie on horseback scooping up dead warriors and galloping to Valhalla.

van de Wetering, originally a student of architecture, discovered sand sculpting, a lead-in to snow sculpting. She dropped architecture and for the past 10 years has dedicated her time to snow carving.

“It takes a long time to make a house, but here with a horse you make it in five days and you get an immediate response from the public. It’s nice to listen to what people say and sometimes they give you better ideas,” van de Wetering said.

On the day the Gazette visited the carvings, the sun shone, but the wind was blowing and at certain points it was quite chilly. However, Steijger seemed not to notice the cold, immersing himself in the project’s creativity.

“This is how I see the world and this is a reflection of it. We just have a certain amount of time and we focus. If it’s cold we take longer warm breaks,” said the smiling carver.

On the north side of Alberta Avenue Community Hall, St. Albert’s Barry Collier, founder of Ice Works, is organizing the ice sculpting and ice activities. Collier has carved two dragons this year.

One is a dragon ice bar sculpted from seven huge ice blocks each weighing about 300 pounds. The dragon’s tail is wrapped around a sword used to pour Bailey’s for adults or chocolate for children.

“It’s a huge draw. It’s growing and growing and people look forward to it,” noted Collier.

In addition, his main carving is a two-dimensional dragon blowing ice flames. The fearsome dragon is about eight feet high and about 10 to 14 feet long.

He also carved two Viking helmets, each weighing about 10 pounds, for visitors to wear and have their photograph taken.

“You wouldn’t believe how popular it was last year. We only had one helmet and people kept trying it on. It lasted until Saturday night when one of the horns got chipped.”

The Grande Prairie foursome known as Tasman Jude, now on an Alberta tour, is out to raise the temperature with a Saturday night concert. This is the festival’s only ticketed event. Tickets are $10 and are available on site.

“They play a little bit of everything with a reggae flavour. They have a very good reputation and it promises to be an energetic evening,” Argy-Burgess said.

Also popular with visitors are a series of competitive events including a two-day ice carving competition, street hockey, deep freezer races and lamp-post cozy design slam.

The Nina Haggerty Centre welcomes anyone wishing to step out of the cold to view a special visual arts exhibit comprised of 40 pieces.

“We had a bigger response than we’ve ever had before. We received 50 submissions and artists were allowed to submit four pieces,” explained Argy-Burgess.

The exhibit combines acrylic, watercolour, mixed media, pastel, photography, collage and one 3-D sculpture.

Three artists from the St. Albert area are included. Photographer Dawn LeBlanc displays a black and white of Castle Mountain as well as a colour photo of a derelict Irish country cottage.

Nolan Kozial, a Paul Kane student, shows two colour acrylics on canvas of two rap rivals. One is of Notorious B.I.G., a revered American hip-hop artist who was shot and killed in 1997. The second canvas is of the deceased Pac, more formally known as Tupac Shakur, one of the biggest selling hip hop artists of all time.

And the third artist is Namao’s Wanda Resek. She submitted a graphite on yupo (recyclable synthetic paper) sketch of three stacked cups that appear to be toppling over.

And if that’s not enough to sell you, the food should do the trick. This year in addition to serving fire-roasted suckling pig, the Vikings will dish up giant smoked turkey legs.

Saturday is Ukrainian Day with pyrohy, cabbage rolls and kubasa while Sunday’s Francophone Day is blanketed with tourtiere, homemade pea soup, baked beans, bread pudding and sugar pie.

Organizers have also adopted a United Way initiative this year and will be collecting new or gently worn winter coats for Coats For Kids and Families. The drop-off bins are at the information booth on 93 St.

A complete list of events and activities is available at www.deepfreeze.ca.