CONGRATULATIONS TO SIMONE PIKKERT OF EDMONTON!  Simone was the lucky winner of the WESTJET draw.  The Silver Skate Festival is grateful to WESTJET for their support. 

The Silver Skate Festival & Winter Celebration is a free event for all Edmontonians to enjoy. Entering its twenty-first  year, the Silver Skate Festival is the longest running winter festival in the City of Edmonton. The festival is rooted in the Dutch tradition of a love of the outdoors and the pleasure of experiencing the cultural and aesthetic beauty of winter but in recent years the festival has also expanded its programming to address the needs of our multicultural community.

The 20th Silver Skate Festival was a resounding success with over 30,000 Festival goers coming out to enjoy the event in Hawrelak Park. This is no small feat and would not be possible without the support of our sponsors and in-kind contributors.    Without them, the Silver Skate Festival would not have grown to what it has become today.  For this they have our gratitude and a big "Thank you".  It is amazing what we can accomplish together as a community.

The Snow Sculpture Competition ,a favourite among Festival goers, garnered applications from across the country and the world enabling us to expand the snow garden to  12 amazing sculptures  including the participation of 4 International teams from as far away as Africa, Argentina and Mexico participating.

As always the public programming was popular and people of all ages enjoyed a wide variety of free events and activities.  The Aboriginal area was a bustle of activity, and our skating demonstrations had huge crowds. Edmontonians  participated in fun races, tried their hand at snow sculpting and basked in the beauty of Hawrelak Park in a horse drawn sleigh ride.

Night Works in the Park continued to grow to include the DIFF film festival, live home grown talent  including the likes Martin Kerr, Colleen Brown, Viajante Drums, and Vibe Tribe to name a few and featured the 2nd annual fire sculpture installation, "24 Hours to Ignition". It was exciting to watch Hawrelak come to life  each evening of the festival as the sun went down.

The Edmonton Winter Triathlon and the Long Blade Skate Marathon Races continue to be an important components of the festival and continue to grow in popularity.  This year our Edmonton Winter Triathlon (EWT) was to encourage community and team participation and we had the largest participation numbers in the history of the festival.  The introduction of the Royal Cup Kortebaan  proved to be a popular event.

It always amazes us how quickly the weekend passes and  we are already planning for next year.  Keep watching the website for exciting developments of the  2011 festival.

Click on the Photos below to enlarge.