What’s On at Deep Freeze
Click to Download the Deep Freeze Poster
There is so much to do at Deep Freeze Festival. You can discover it all by downloading our full program in PDF format.
The Deep Freeze Winter Festival is a free family event that brings together the Ukrainian, Franco-Albertan, Franco-African, First Nations, and South American communities to revel in the magic and beauty of winter. This year’s theme Surf’s Up: a Snow to Sand Winter Adventure will offer exiting opportunities for both patrons and artists creating unexpected experiences celebrating the community through its urban landscape and exceptional spaces.
On Saturday, January 7th, revel in French Canadian Heritage with music, cuisine, and dance. Enjoy tourtière (meat pie) and tarte au sucre (sugar pie), tap your spoons and visit the delicious cabane à sucre for la tire (iced maple taffy on a stick). Patrons are invited to watch the ‘Two Block Challenge’ ice sculpture competition taking place throughout the day and enjoy Tom Fool’s Ice and Snow Kingdom.
Saturday evening offers Surf’s Up! Dance featuring Tsunami Bros. Surf Band from 7:00-11:00pm. Before the Beach Boys and the Beatles, there was instrumental “Surf” music. Tsunami Bros. Surf Band offers great tunes, intricate guitar work, fuzz tone, reverb and pounding drums. Intermission will feature fashions from the 50s by local designers. Tickets for Surf’s Up! Dance are $10 and available in advance at The Carrot Community Arts Coffeehouse (9351-118 Ave) and Tix on the Square, or at the door.
Sunday, January 8th, the Festival will bring back the Julian calendar and celebrate the Olde New Year with Byzantine food and entertainment including Vlad’s Village Pig a delicious fire roasted suckling pig fresh from the spot and served on a bun. Kick up your feet with traditional Ukrainian melodies, wheat weaving, and Zavtra Ukrainian dance. Don’t forget to stop by the Cossack kitchen for perogies, kielbasa, lazy cabbage rolls, and borscht.
On the street, families can enjoy Heritage Activities including wagon rides, outdoor ice-skating, Olde Thyme curling, winter mini golf, giant ice slide, “Little Chippers” family snow carving and competition de boucheron (log cutting competition), along with street hockey tournaments and new this year; the Cool Runnins’ Deep Freezer Race. Further activities include demonstrations from the Society for Creative Anachronism (medieval role play), as well as storytelling, aboriginal dance and displays of aboriginal crafts and customs in outdoor Tipis.
Festival-goers can also enjoy the Artisan Market and Gallery Sale, where artworks from over 50 visual and fine craft artists will be showcased and sold. The Market and Gallery will be located inside the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts (9225-118 Ave) and St. Faiths and St. Stephen the Martyr Church (11725-93 Street). Also, patrons are encouraged to watch for storytelling around the fire.
The Festival will also feature the Alberta Ave Mummers Collective. Mummers Theatre (Mummery), is a tradition that goes back to the middle ages when, during Christmas or just before lent, serfs and peasants would dress up in “disguises” and present pageant style performances to their liege lords. Mummery has always been about “by the people, for the people.” Watch for the Mummers on the street and take part in the People’s Choice Awards, voting for your favorite performance.
The two day festival is open to the public and pay what you can donations along with Food Bank donations. The Deep Freeze: Byzantine Winter Festival is organized by The Arts on the Ave Edmonton Society, a non-profit, community based, grassroots initiative engaged in development of Alberta (118th) Avenue into a community arts district.