Hé Ho! 

In Saint-Boniface and elsewhere, the connection is obvious: February = Festival du Voyageur. Pandemic or not, the tradition was upheld this year, from February 12 to 21.

This time last year, I was showing you snow sculptures, eating a beaver tail, and listening to music and drinking Caribou in a tent. But what was there to do for FDV 2021?

Food

For the Festival du Voyageur, Promenade Café concocted a special menu: meals were available to order online to pick up, reheat, and eat while enjoying concerts. Whether you chose tourtière, ribs in Caribou sauce, Granny’s lemon chicken, or smoked trout, each meal was accompanied by vegetables and bannock. The ingredients are all local and the portions are generous.

I really enjoyed my tourtière, but my favourite had to be the sugar pie, deliciously creamy!

Entertainment

• Online concerts, of course! If I had to choose just one artist to listen to, I think I’d say… Rayannah! What about you?
• Minut Mitchif focuses on Métis culture, hosted by Barney Morin. Clothes, ceinture fléchée, baking, just pick a theme and learn! Indigenous heritage continues to be present at the Festival du Voyageur.
• Recipes! Tourtière, pea soup, Caribou sauce and chômeur pudding with Chef Luc Jean and three variations using maple syrup with Josée Curée. I can promise that I will have tried all of these by the time Festival 2022 comes around.

Good news, even if the Festival is over, all of the videos are still available for free on their Youtube channel!

Sculptures

Snow sculptures are spread out all across Winnipeg this year – hurry and check them out before they melt!

I really enjoyed being able to find a variety of sculptures throughout the city, some fairly traditional and others much zanier. All of the artists are Manitoban and some are still quite young.

Saint-Boniface has sculptures along Provencher Boulevard that I showed you in the last blog, and the ones pictured above are all in front of Fort Gibraltar. Here’s hoping that next year we’ll be able to go past the Fort walls!