ELY— Ten days of fun at the end of the road gets underway in earnest this Friday, Feb. 7, with the opening ceremony of the 31st annual Ely Winter Festival, set for 6 p.m. at Whiteside Park.
The ceremony starts at the bandshell with an honor song by the Bois Forte Singers. The action then moves to the snow sculpture area for the lighting of the torch.
This year, the snow sculpting symposium was set to get underway Thursday evening at Whiteside Park, with sculptures expected to be completed by Sunday, Feb. 9. The festival will host 17 professional and 10 amateur teams this year, including ones from the U.K., Germany, Argentina, Ecuador, and Canada. One of those international visitors will be Germany’s award-winning Franziska “Franzi” Agrawal, who was a bronze medalist in the 2024 International Snow Sculpture Championships. Agrawal is a return visitor to the winter festival. She has been a part of the festival’s snow sculpting symposium for several years and her distinctive creations of fantastic geometric shapes are easily recognizable.
The Ely Winter Festival is much more than just snow sculptures. The 10-day event hosts a variety of events and activities. This year marks the return of the Great Nordic Beardfest after a two-year hiatus. The Ely ArtWalk and activities at the Dorothy Molter Museum are also part of the fun. Many of the winter festival’s signature events are once again on the schedule, like the Ely Community Resource annual fundraiser spaghetti dinner, tours of Listening Point on Burntside Lake, and the annual Kuub tournament. The event schedule and the ArtWalk map are available at the Ely Winter Festival headquarters at Northern Grounds, at the corner of Sheridan and Central, or online at elywinterfestival. com under the “Events” tab.