Chills, Thrills, and Creative Skills: Celebrate 35 Years of the Silver Skate Festival!

Edmonton’s longest-running winter festival, the Silver Skate Festival, is celebrating its 35th year from February 7–17, 2025, at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Park. Organized by the Silver Skate Festival Society, this iconic event is a vibrant celebration of winter that seamlessly blends art, culture, recreation, and sport in Alberta. With activities for all ages and interests, the festival invites visitors to experience the magic of winter like never before. Dive into the Family Fun Zone, brimming with exciting, hands-on activities. From captivating snow carvings to immersive cultural performances, every corner of the festival offers something unique. Whether you're a first-time visitor or a long-time festival-goer, this event promises to inspire creativity, build community, and showcase the very best of Edmonton's winter spirit. Read on for our interview with the festival’s lead organizers to uncover the rich history, cherished traditions, and exciting highlights of this year’s 35th anniversary celebration.

Our in-person and online tutoring team at Teachers on Call encourages families to bundle up and experience the Silver Skate Festival, where fun, learning, and creativity come together in a truly unforgettable winter setting that beckons people outdoors. This hands-on event offers an invaluable opportunity for children to engage with art, culture, and community in a way that enhances their educational development. From exploring the visual arts through snow carving and fire sculptures to connecting with nature and local traditions, the festival sparks meaningful conversations and learning beyond the classroom. It’s a perfect opportunity for both personal growth and family bonding—important lessons that last long after the snow melts. For more details, visit Silver Skate Festival.

Participating Silver Skate Festival Locations

• General Festival: (Feb 7-17th, 2025) Sir Wilfrid Laurier Park, 13221 Buena Vista Road, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 2R7  
• Registered Race Events: (Feb 16th, 2025) Victoria Park Oval, 12030 River Valley Road, Edmonton, Alberta T5K 1L4  
• BarneBirkie: (Feb 9th, 2025) Gold Bar Park, 10955 50 St NW, Edmonton, Alberta T6A 2E9 

Please note, these are temporary locations as the annual festival historically takes place in William Hawrelak Park which is undergoing a revitalization project.

Hooked on Winter Wonders: An Inside Look at the Silver Skate Festival with Erin DiLoreto, Executive Producer, Silver Skate Festival

For someone attending the Silver Skate Festival for the first time, what can they expect to see, do, and experience?

Maybe the question is, “What can't you do?” I'm just kidding. The Silver Skate Festival is a blend of Arts, Culture, Recreation and Sport through a Winter lens.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Silver Skate Festival! Can you tell us more about how it all began and how the festival has evolved over the years?

The Silver Skate Festival was founded 35 years ago by a group of volunteers from the Dutch Canadian Club and the Edmonton Winter Triathlon Society.  On the Family Day weekend in February the Dutch Club would head down to Hawrelak Park with some orienteering tents, deep fryers and their speed skates. (You have to have your croquettes.) They would hold speed skating races with members from the club.  On Sunday the Edmonton Winter Triathlon Group would host a small triathlon.  In 1990 they decided to form the Edmonton Winter Triathlon Society, which has since changed to the Silver Skate Festival Society.  In 2007 the city of Edmonton was designated Culture Capital of Canada, the Silver Skate Festival Society was provided a grant to add Artistic and Cultural Programs to the festival.  We haven't looked back.  Some of the older Dutch club members still tell me tales of years where it was so cold they couldn't get the fryers hot enough.

How many people do you expect to attend this year’s festival, and where do most of your visitors come from?  

150,000 festival attendees come from all over Alberta. We see visitors from outside the Province, the Southern United States and Europe. A lot of our American visitors are whom I truly see as the "Snow Birds" as they are coming North to experience winter.

The festival celebrates prairie winter life and offers unique cultural experiences. How does it reflect Edmonton’s identity and heritage as a winter city?

The Silver Skate Festival is about sharing our Communities Winter Stories from our Indigenous Friends, to our newcomers who have made Edmonton home and want to embrace their community as well as share how their culture celebrates and embraces winter.  We showcase local community groups that offer winter activities who will activate on site showcasing their programs and the opportunity to try these activities such as Sledge Hockey, FrostBite Winter Camping, Ice Bikes and the Edmonton Speed Skating Association. They also share where they can be involved in these programs.   As we continue to grow we look at ways to showcase and celebrate the people of Edmonton who are as diverse as this incredible region we call home.

The Folk Trail is a beloved part of the festival. Can you share more about what visitors can expect on the trail this year and if there’s a new twist or theme this year?

For its 35th anniversary in 2025, the Silver Skate Festival is excited to be launching an ambitious and timely artistic creation project that asks these very questions. Silver Skate is using art to reexamine our consumption practices. Three local artists have used the waste produced at local festivals and events (including Silver Skate) to design a series of sculptures that make up the World of Away. A team of actors has created stories, songs, and characters in response to these sculptures. During the festival, audiences will be able to interact with the characters, explore the world, and help to grow and build the sculptures. Each sculpture and each character you meet in the world will offer a creative way to reconsider our relationship with the materials we use and discard in our daily lives. 

The project is inspired, in part, by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ideals that Silver Skate is trying to live up to in all its work. These 17 goals include Responsible Consumption & Production, Affordable and Clean Energy, Good Health & Well-Being, Clean Water & Sanitation, Sustainable Cities & Communities, and Climate Action. To learn more about this project please visit here.

The Silver Skate Festival offers such a variety of activities. Can you tell us about the different types of experiences visitors can enjoy and what makes them unique?

Try Sledge Hockey or the ice bikes, learn Cree, watch a Blacksmith hard at work, explore the various artistic installations on site celebrating our local artists and historical folk trail stories. Partake in our registered skating events, go skating! Enjoy the World of Away and build a lantern and join us for our lantern walk to our Fire Sculpture lighting. The list is endless.

Education is such a strong component of the festival. What activities or exhibits do you think will appeal most to students and teachers, and how do they tie into learning?  

Our Folk Trail stories always have an educational or moral component. This year as mentioned we are focusing on the world's consumption practices. The artistic installations commemorating past folk trail stories for our 35th are a variety of allegorical tales that have a deeper meaning and hopefully provoke conversations. 2024's Folk Trail stories, The Wind and Sleep speak to strong power and quiet power and how they are both equally important. Our "Twin" story speaks to the Twins, Talent and Hard Work with the tale that Talent will only get you so far. The Land of Dark and the Land of Shadow's share that even though we are different we are still the same. Our Heritage Village has a variety of educational components, we have artifacts on site from Fort Edmonton Park for Patrons to visit with and learn from, Cree lessons as well as some electronic music mixing sessions for youth to learn from our Contemporary Indigenous Programmers. We offer Snow Carving Workshops and during our Snow Carving Symposium our artistic teams love sharing with the crowd about their art form. I didn't even mention the International Festival of Winter Cinema's programming which is quite extensive and educational as well.

Volunteers play a critical role in the success of the festival. What volunteer opportunities are available for students, and how can they get involved to learn and contribute?

Volunteers are the cornerstone to our success, without our volunteers we would not be able to operate. Volunteers are the bread and butter of building community and the core to building a healthy and wonderful festival. 

The Snow Sculpture Garden and Fire Sculpture are highlights of the festival. How do these artistic elements educate and inspire attendees about Edmonton’s winter culture and creativity?

Snow Sculpture is an incredible medium to work in, we find that the majority of our international applicants are practicing stone sculptors. Snow is a great inexpensive medium to work with especially if they are looking to transfer the work to large scale stone later.  It allows the artist to see how the light works within the sculpture. For the public our hope is to get more individuals interested in the art of snow carving. Our Fire Sculptures are about releasing our fears and letting go after a long winter. We offer festival goers the opportunity to write down their fears or something that they would like to release and we offer it to the fire sculptor artists to put into the fire sculpture each night before the lighting of the sculpture.

What impact do you hope the festival has on Edmontonians, particularly children and youth, in terms of connecting them to their community and environment?

We hope that our messaging is done in an educational and playful way on the importance of sharing our Winter Story, being good guardians of our planet and the importance of building community. 

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As Edmonton's iconic Silver Skate Festival kicks off its 35th year, there’s no better time to bundle up and immerse yourself in the city’s winter magic. Whether you're making memories in the Family Fun Zone or exploring the artistic wonders of the Folk Trail, the Silver Skate Festival offers the perfect mix of adventure, creativity, and community. Don't miss out on the fun—mark your calendars and join the celebration from February 7–17, 2025! We’re shining a spotlight on winter festivals happening from coast to coast. Check out what’s available across Ontario in Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Waterloo, and more on our blog.