Winterlude’s Pibon Festival brings in crowds to celebrate Indigenous culture

Winterlude is officially on, and crowds gathered to celebrate Indigenous art, music and heritage at the event’s Pibon Festival. CTV’s Camille Wilson reports.

The 48^th edition of Winterlude is underway across the Capital Region, and the event’s Pibon Festival brought out crowds to celebrate Indigenous culture on Sunday.

“Celebrate this time of reflection. Let’s celebrate the time when Mother Earth has time to sleep, feel proud about it and have some joy in it,” says Gabrielle Fayant, owner of Adaawewigamig.

The celebration included hide and frost scraping, where caribou hide, bison hide and deer hide gets processed through smoking and tanning and made into gloves, coats, jewelry and earrings. Indigenous cuisine and winter coats by indigenous designers also on display.

Event-attendee Alexandra Vargas, who’s originally from Colombia, says the festival was an opportunity to discover more about Ottawa, Canada and Indigenous culture.

• Here’s what you need to know about the 48th edition of Winterlude

“We like to learn more about Indigenous communities in Canada, and I saw that Winterlude was having this event,” says Alexandra Vargas. “Best way to learn more.”

A Winterlude mini–Pow Wow also took place at the Canadian Museum of History with a Grand Entry opening ceremony, drumming and Indigenous dancers.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity, first of all, to stay warm inside the museum, but to also learn more about Indigenous cultures, which is so important,” says Melanie Brault, director of capital celebrations with Canadian Heritage.

Nathalia Alexandre says it was her family’s first time checking out Winterlude, and the Pow Wow was their first stop.

“We decided today we come to celebrate this culture to know more about them. It’s been so nice, so fun. After that, we are going to go for the Winterlude, where we are going to enjoy the activities that they have there,” says Alexandre.

Confederation Park has the Crystal Graden featuring ice sculptures and the Snowflake Kingdom at Jacques Cartier Park with eight different corridors for tubing. This year there’s also a Ferris wheel.

There’s a shuttle bus to get people from site to site – between Confederation Park and Snowflake Kingdom.

Winterlude is free and runs until Feb. 16, including the Family Day weekend.

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