Regina’s oldest Waskimo winter festival celebrates 50 years

The seven-day Wascana Winter Festival, formerly known as the Waskimo Festival, celebrated its 50th anniversary on Monday.

Being one of the oldest winter festivals in Regina, organizers credit the origin of the event to the media coverage it received at the time.

“When I was a kid Waskimo started in 1975. [Wascana] was a new thing in a way,” shared Bob Friedrich, who has been a volunteer with the festival for over a decade.

“The media got together and they said, ‘Let’s have a winter festival, Regina needs something in the middle of February to get people out of the mid-winter blues.’ They started Waskimo, not me, but I went to it and it was a lot of fun.”

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During the early stages of the festival, Wascana Lake was used for various winter activities. However following a revitalization project of the lake in 2003, also known as the Big Dig, Friedrich said it became unsafe to continue holding events on the frozen lake.

“Everything from snow sculpting to car racing on the lake, if you can imagine, motorcycle racing, dog sled races. We had all kinds of other activities, skating around Willow Island, all that sort of thing,” explained Friedrich.

“Then the Big Dig happened and that changed the makeup of the lake. They had to put in aerating pumps. It’s not really safe to go on the lake.”

Since, the festival has evolved to hosting different activities around the park such as horse drawn sleigh rides, snow cricket, skating, The South Saskatchewan Youth Orchestra, as well as multicultural dance performances.

In celebration of 50 years, a Rugby Snow Cup Tournament was also held this year.

“The biggest thing we’re having today is our 50th anniversary Rugby Cup. Teams from all over North Dakota, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan are going to compete for the first 50th Cup,” Friedrich said.

With the festival overlapping with Regina’s Frost Festival, Friedrich said it has been great to work alongside Frost organizers in effort to maximize fun activities for individuals and families to do during the winter season.

“It’s funny Regina’s a traditional place. When we start doing things, we start to just try and say ‘Hey, that’s a tradition we want to follow,’” Friedrich shared.

“We’ve seen a few festivals fall by the wayside and we just thought let’s see if we can keep Waskimo going. We lost the Folk Festival, we lost the [Regina International] Fringe. We’re just trying to keep a few things going here in Regina that people remember from when they were kids.”

Friedrich added that people are encouraged to share any pictures they have from previous Waskimo festivals to the group’s social media page.

The festival will continue up until Feb. 21.