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ELY- The 31st annual Ely Winter Festival gets underway next Thursday, Feb. 6, with a long list of festivities during the ten-day event. Snow sculptors from three continents, including 17 professional …
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ELY- The 31st annual Ely Winter Festival gets underway next Thursday, Feb. 6, with a long list of festivities during the ten-day event.
Snow sculptors from three continents, including 17 professional snow sculpting teams and 10 amateur teams, will be on hand to mold their masterpieces in Whiteside Park.
“We will have snow sculptors from the U..K., Argentina, Canada, and Germany this year, and we’re waiting to hear from the team from Ecuador to confirm they can come,” Ely Winter Festival Director Shauna Vega said on Tuesday. “This will be the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that this many international snow sculptors have come to Ely.”
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 snow sculpting symposium gets underway on Thursday, Feb. 6 in Whiteside Park, and the sculptures will be completed by Sunday, Feb. 9.
The city of Ely provides the snow for the snow sculptures. Unlike last year, when the city had to scrounge for snow, the Ely Public Works Department found a ready source of high-quality snow nearby.
“We got the snow from the Ely Municipal Airport,” said Ely Clerk-Treasurer Harold Langowski. “It’s great snow. Because there’s no vehicle or pedestrian traffic, the airport’s snow is very white and clean.”
Opening ceremony
The official opening of the festival is set for Friday evening, Feb. 7. “This year, we have some new additions,” said Peta Barrett, the MC for the ceremony. “We will start the evening at the bandshell in the park at 6 p.m., where the Bois Forte Singers, an Ojibwe drum circle, will play and sing one or more honor songs.” The ceremonial honor songs will mark the official start of the event.
“This is a first for us,” Barrett added, “and I hope it will become an ongoing part of the winter festival. We are fortunate to have this group come and open the festival for us.”
After the drum circle, the attendees will walk the short distance to the snow sculpture row, where the Ely High School Nordic Ski Team will form a ceremonial arch with their ski poles as the torch “glides into the park.” The skiers will pass the torch off to this year’s grand marshal, Lucy Soderstrom, the program director of the Ely Folk School.
“We have a brand-new torch this year that we commissioned,” Barrett told the Timberjay. “Unlike the old torch, this one is not dangerous so it’s a big step up.” The torch was made by Warren Bettencourt of the Duluth Forging Community, a blacksmithing group. Bettencourt is no stranger to Ely and visits several times a year to teach blacksmithing at the Ely Folk School.
“Also, this year we will have a fun and creative drill performed by the Northwoods Snowshoe Squad,” Barrett added, “wearing traditional Ojibwe snowshoes. We’ll have a really great blend for the opening this year.”
So many events
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 (see inset this page). The Ely ArtWalk and activities at the Dorothy Molter Museum (see both on p. 2) 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. Kuub is a Swedish game that resembles English bowles or Italian bocce but with thrown batons instead of balls.
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.