Festival du Voyageur, Olympics, Graffiti update

Happy Friday everybody!

The Festival du Voyageur kicks off tonight on Provencher Bvd. I hope to check out the Festival at some point this week. If you see somebody walking around with a dead fox on his head, drinking Caribou, that might be me! Come over and say "hi". If it's not me, then hopefully it is somebody equally friendly.

However, I will not be at the Festival opening ceremony tonight, because I will be watching the Olympic ceremonies on TV. I always enjoy the Olympics, but this year I have the added interest of being acquainted with one of our medal hopefuls. Jon Montgomery has won at Whistler before, so don't be surprised if he does well next week.

Here is a photo of Jon with his sled:


Here is a photo of Jon with a frozen turkey:

(don't ask...)

Something else worth checking out: The Waking Eyes are playing at the Forks tomorrow with Sierra Noble between 1pm and 5pm in a Olympic celebration of some kind. (I will not be wearing the dead fox if I go to that event.)

*** Graffiti update ***

You may recall my previous post on City of Winnipeg designated graffiti zones. Well ... turns out they are not official after all. Check out the story by Kristy Rydz in the Uniter.

“This is not an initiative that we are encouraging at all. It sounds like someone is just trying to spur proliferation of graffiti,” said supervisor of public service operations Bob Okabe.

That's too bad, because according to a separate Uniter story, the support for more graffiti is near-unanimous,

When we need to talk about graffiti, we need to distinguish between "artistic graffiti" and tagging. Tagging is never good. I, however, am a fan of creative artistic graffiti, but there is a place for that: like rail cars, bridge underpasses, and walls surrounding construction sites (not that we have any of those in Winnipeg). I do not condone any kind of graffiti on private business, or houses, or my car.

Anyhow .. I raise my glass of caribou and wish you a great weekend! Hope to see you around.

Festival Du Voyageur (bumped)

Festival starts tonight. The City still doesn't have this on their event calendar. Apparently whoever reads this blog at city hall isn't powerful enough to make that kind of thing happen.

Have a good weekend. Cheers / santé !

***
The Festival Du Voyageur starts up next week. The Festival is the turning point of the winter to me. Even if I don't go, I know that we're heading into the home stretch when the Festival comes around. I plan on going this year though. I may even buy a button and go twice. Of the 125 different nationalities that make up my heritage, French is one of them, and going to the Festival helps to connect me to that and adds a little wee bit to my sense of identity.

But even if you're a burger-eating anglophone (*pfft*) you should still go. There are the snow sculptures and barrels with burning wood that will make you smell like smoke when you try to warm up, and if that isn't enough to make you put on your parka and paddle down to Saint Boniface, there is also music.

Some old fav's have returned like the Dust Rhinos; my old buddy Dan Frechette is playing; and Sierra Noble returns to the Sugar Shack. This may be your last chance to see Sierra Noble performing in an outdoor tent while you eat tourtière and drink Caribou. Her song "Possibility" is starting to get some radio play and I wouldn't be surprised to see this gal go on to some big things. She's got a good voice and tons of talent. It's hard to go mainstream when you play a fiddle, but you never know.

By the way, why is our only winter festival (and the second largest in the country) not on the City's event calendar?

Sierra Noble Possibility: