2021 Prince Albert Winter Festival goes out with a bang

While the 2021 Prince Albert Winter Festival (PAWF) may be the most unique in its’ 57 year history, the community support remained quite visible all throughout the final weekend.

Reminiscent of the turnout during the Raiders last playoff run, vehicles of all shapes and sizes filled the parking lot outside the Art Hauser Centre Friday night to view the fireworks show. Festival president Bev Erickson told paNOW it was really great to see all the families.

“I definitely think the turnout was because people have just been cooped up for so long,” she said.

Reflecting back on the past two weeks, Erickson recalled the biggest challenge in past years was finding enough volunteers, but this year it was about making sure all the events, while virtual, still followed provincial health regulations.

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“We had six individual cordless mics that were supplied by Big Drum Media,” she said, adding even though the artists all wore masks, all the microphones had to be sanitized after.

These were “the littlest logistical things that the common person doesn’t know about,” she said.

Looking ahead to next year, Erickson said the festival board will have a follow up meeting in March and will discuss what virtual options should carry over. She explained one of the advantages of livestreaming the events this year, was providing access to people who would not normally be able to get out, like the seniors in the long term care homes.

“Everyone loved the drive-in fireworks and they loved the drive-thru fish fry, so those are definitely options we are going to look at for next year,” Erickson said.

In addition to thanking the general community for their support, Erickson said the festival this year would not have been possible with the support of the sponsors, as well as the dedication of co-chairs Don Mitchell and Lawrence Joseph.

Mitchell, a longtime broadcaster with both 900 CKBI and CTV, has been involved with the winter festival since the early 1980’s and acknowledged the different feel this year.

“I think I missed a lot of the people like when you go to the Country North Show, or some of the other shows, and you get to go and fill the place and just have a lot of fun. That didn’t happen so it was unfortunate,” he said, adding he still had a lot of fun and enjoyed learning how technology can be used to run a two week festival.

Saturday night’s fish fry was originally scheduled to wrap up at 7 p.m., but due to the long line up of vehicles kept going for an extra two hours. Mitchell said he would support a similar option in years to come.

“The people who put that fish fry on did just a great job getting cars through and the food was excellent,” he said.

Gettin’ jiggy with it

Another one of the more popular online festival events this year was the jigging contest. Participants of all ages and locations (Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba,) submitted videos of themselves dancing, and the videos with the most likes on the PAWF Jigging Facebook page, won cash prizes. Prince Albert’s Ashla Michel, 27, won first place in the 18 to 34 year old female age group. She told paNOW she’s had a great response.

“I’ve had a few people messaging me about my dancing and where I learned and about my mukluks and where I got them made. It was pretty cool,” she said.

As of Tuesday, Michel’s video has over 1,000 likes and has been shared over 200 times. Michel has been dancing in the festival over 10 years but this was the first time she was asked to compete virtually, away from a large audience.

“It was a little different but it was also a lot of fun too because a lot of people from all over entered and it was pretty cool to see all kinds of dancers,” she said.

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell