By Kayla Bruch

51st Winter Festival moves to new location

Dec 23, 2014 | 6:12 AM

The 51st Prince Albert Winter Festival is undergoing a few changes, including finding a new location: the area around the Alfred Jenkins Field House.

President of the Prince Albert Winter Festival Barry Mihilewicz said they love hosting the festival by the river, but it just isn’t practical to make plans at a location where conditions can change so rapidly.

“The river location has always been a problem because … you never know if you can actually use it until you go out on the ice, which is typically about the middle of January and drill a bunch of test holes to make sure that it’s safe,” he said. 

After these tests, Mihilewicz said you still don’t know what will happen. “You know [the] current change[s] or the weather gets warmer and the ice may not be safe.”

Mihilewicz said over the years the organizers did consider other facilities to host the event.

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“The location south of Marquis Road, you know, in the southeast corner of the city and that’s a nice location, except power is an issue and there’s no parking other than what you would plow out of the fields,” he said.

Mihilewicz said there were also talks about moving to Prime Minister’s Park, “in the ball fields or whatever but that wasn’t practical.”

After much discussion with the City, the festival board members and Mayor Greg Dionne decided the Alfred Jenkins Field House was the perfect place to host the festival.

“It’s going to show off that facility probably to people that haven’t been there before, so that excites me,” said Dionne.

Additionally, Dionne said this event might encourage people to use the facility. “They might sign up for one of the walking track programs the weightlifting, many of the City workout programs that we have there.”

The Field House’s amenities include a concession, bathrooms and large fields to host the dog races.

Dionne said he would like to ultimately see the festival hosted at the Field House in the long-term.

“Like anything else, when you do it the first time you digest what you do, you have your event and then you have a debriefing after if it works and if it works it will be available for them in the future,” he said.

A few notable aspects 

Prince Albert’s festival is the second-longest running winter festival in North America according to Mihilewicz.

However, they are always looking for new ways to change the event.

“We’re hoping to have sleigh rides there,” he said. Also “we’re looking at basically possibly a re-design of the King Trapper events, we’re not sure how that’s exactly going to work, but you know it may be time for a little bit of a makeover there.”  

Another crowd pleaser that may change this year is the dog races.

“We’re … hoping that we can sort of lay out the course so that people can go and watch the races at other places,” he said. It’s possible the route will go past the penitentiary down [Highway] 302 west.”

The winter festival will run from Feb. 12 to Feb. 22, starting with the Voices of the North show.

For more information check out the Winter Festival’s Facebook page.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter:@KaylaBruch1