Regina's Waskimo winter festival returns amid mild weather

It was a warmer-than-usual February day today, but Regina's Waskimo winter festival was a go and a big crowd turned out.

A slew of outdoor events took place on WascanaLake, east of the Broad Street bridge, as the festival made its return after an absence of 16 years.

Jim Aho, festival producer for Waskimo, was optimistic about the festival's future.

"Waskimo was always on aSundaybut as our committee came together and looked at the calendar, we said 'oh my goodness we got a Family DayMonday' and really it was wide open. Really, there isn't a lot other stuff going on so we grabbed it and we said Waskimo is now Family Day," Aho said.

"Our plans for the future are really to expand it we could call it WaskimoWeekend who knows the sky's the limit what we could do with this."

In addition to the outdoor fun, there's alsoanindoor children's carnival inside theConexusArts Centre.

"(Waskimo)'s a great idea because everyone gets to come out and skate and have fun," said 11-year-old Ethan Ulriksen, who tried his hand at snow cricket.

Five-year-old GraysonFonkasludbuilt himself a snowman and kept his words short and sweet.

"It took less than a minute and I didn't do the bottom but I did this and this and that's mostly all I do," he said. "And that's mostly all I gotta say."

It startedat 10 a.m. CST.

Two events werecancelled due tot the warm weather and lack of snow:cross-country skiing and the "fat bike" races.

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