Thursday, March 10, 2011

...somewhere I had never been before

Festival du Voyageur.


I'm not sure how I have lived in this city for 30 years and had never once gone to check out this amazing event.  That changed a few weeks ago though, on a Saturday night with a windchill of -39, when I bundled up like a kid going tobogganing and headed down to the festival site with a friend from work.

Oh my.

I was awestruck.  The ice sculptures.  The delicious crepes.  The music.  The history and the stories of Fort Gibraltar.  The dancing.  The friendly people.  The handmade jewelery.  The gooey sugar on a stick.  The cold temperature didn't matter for a second....okay, well maybe by hour three it got a little cold.  But the tents were warm and the dancing brought feeling back to numb toes.  And the sugar high.......well, that just fueled the dancing.


I had no idea how to roll this maple syrup/sugar/something else that I don't even know - concoction onto this popsicle stick, but the guy running the stand was very helpful, showing us how to test it to see if it was ready and then making sure we rolled up something that would actually stay on the stick.  It would have been even more helpful to know that it would melt very quickly - and make the stickiest mess ever - but I guess learning that is part of the experience.

Not surprisingly, we spent quite a bit of time in the "Sugar Shack" tent, and we managed to catch most of the set for Oh My Darling, a fantastic local female group.  They had a lot of fans there that night, and they made a couple of new ones since we both ended up buying their cd.

Needless to say, I'm going back next year.

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