Warm weather persists for Winterlude's 2nd weekend

Winterlude is now in its second weekend, and theunseasonably warm conditions aren't looking favourablefor some of the annual festival's mainstay attractions.

"It's a bit underwhelming," said Melissa Aguilar, who was visiting from Montreal and strolling along Sparks Street with her familyFriday morning.

"We were surprised it's not as eventful, but we're happy there's at least a few things here, like ice sculptures."

The 46th edition of Winterlude opened Feb. 2.

As of Friday evening, the Rideau Canal Skateway remained closed,some of the ice sculptures on Sparks Street were under protective tarps, andfestival organizers wereon standby for closing theSnowflake Kingdom in Gatineau'sJacques-Cartier Park if it became unsafe.

This comes after a warm winter last year dampened celebrations too, whenhigh temperaturesmeltedice sculpturesandprevented the skateway from openingfor the first time in itsfive-decade history.

Festival adapting, says organizers

Canadian Heritage spokesperson Melanie Brault, whose departmentorganizes Winterlude, said her team has been preparing for these kinds of unpredictable conditions for several years.

This year, Brault said, they triedtoincludeprogramming that wasnot weather-dependent and to be more strategic with rolling out attractions that do depend on wintry conditions.

For one, the building of ice sculptures would be staggered across all three weekends, Brault said, to ensure one weekend of bad weather wouldn't ruin the entire festival.

"From a visitor experience perspective, this means you actually get to see these beautifulice carvings come to life in person," she said.

Brault said the sevenor so ice sculptures built last weekend were placed under tarps during the week to slow their melting. Thetarps will be removed on Saturday in anticipation of larger crowds, she said.

• Warm weather plague's Winterlude's opening day

While the Snowflake Kingdomis still welcoming visitors after aslightlydelayed openingandall nine ice slides are in operation,Brault said festival organizersmay need to close the park if the warmer temperatures cause the snow pack to become too slippery to walk on.

"Hopefully next weekend, we will be in Canadian winter weather," Braultsaid.

According to Tourism Ottawa, the warmer temperatures haven'taffected turnout so far.

"Early results are showing that this year's first weekend of Winterlude saw more out-of-town visitors than last year's first Winterlude weekend," said director of public affairsJrme Miousse in a statement to CBC News.

Still, somebusinesses that rely on crowds of skaters are hopingthe Rideau Canal Skateway will make a comeback.

"Unfortunately, since we're an on-ice operation only, we have not been able to open since Winterlude started," said Benoit Gatien, director of operations for Capital Skates, which rents skates to people on the canal.

While Gatien has a team of 12 to 15 people, mostly students, on standby,he predicts it will become harder to entice employees back to workin the coming years if warm winter seasonspersist.

Christopher Burke has had a front row seat to the canal,in all of its conditions, since the 1980sas the general manager at the Canal Ritz restaurant.

While the Winterlude rush is important to therestaurant's business so much so that onemember of the kitchen staff has grown accustomed to fixing customers' skates with a screwdriver the restaurant is lucky to have a loyal base oflocal dinersregardless of whether the canal opens or not, Burke said.

He's still hoping the skateway can relaunch, noting he recently served two tourists from Germany who traveled to Ottawa in both 2023 and 2024 in the vain hopes of skating on it.

"Now they'reflying to Winnipegbecause they desperately want to skate on a large body of water," Burke said."So we lost two."