Frost Festival seeing great attendance despite some melting

A week of icy activities at the Frost Festival is starting to thaw in the mild temperatures.

Jennifer Johnson, Regina’s deputy city manager of communications, Service Regina and tourism, said despite a little bit of melting, the first weekend of the winter festival was a success.

Due to the spring-like temperatures, some of the outdoor activities are slowly creating small puddles. Environment Canada’s forecast shows daytime highs above freezing for the past week.

Ice sculpture at the REAL District made for Frost Regina. (Daniel Reech/980 CJME)

Some of the festival hubs have covered up their ice sculptures to help them last until next weekend.

“Throughout this week we are seeing some melt,” Johnson said. “Some of the ice sculptures that have been in the shade have survived OK. Other ones are in a little worse shape.”

Skaters are benched at the rinks at Wascana Park and the City Square area due to the toasty conditions turning ice into slush.

“They have it closed right now so it doesn’t continue to chew up the ice surface,” Johnson said. “The ice thickness is actually still in good shape. It’s just the surface that is too slushy.”

On Thursday, the Provincial Capital Commission announced that the Wascana rink will remain closed for the remainder of the season due to the melting ice.

She said the festival committee was planning on holding the event amid extremely cold weather instead of milder temperatures, so there are lots of activities to do inside that aren’t affected by weather.

“It should still be a very fun weekend, even if some of the things have melted,” said Johnson.

The programming at the City Square rink has been moved to the south side of Victoria Park.

According to Johnson, attendance for the winter festival has been great, with long lines for dog sleds, horse drawn carriages, and the Glow light display.

“I really hope this weather warm up encourages people to get out of the house,” Johnson added.

The festival wraps up on Sunday.