A week of good fun at Puvirnituq’s Snow Festival

Who needs a hotel when you can stay in an igloo? For $50 a night, visitors to Puvirnituq’s Snow Festival could stay in this igloo village. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE DUBOIS)

Puvirnituq’s Akinisie Sivuarapik (left) and Sarah Surusila (right) throat sing on stage at the Snow Festival. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE DUBOIS)

The Innu duo Kasthin, composed of Florent Vollant (left) and Claude McKenzie (right), played for the first time together in Puvirnituq at the Snow Festival’s closing night. By raising their hands in the air, the two encouraged the crowd to sing along to some their most popular songs such as Tshinanu. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE DUBOIS)

ISABELLE DUBOIS

Ever since 1991, many participants in the Puvirnituq Snow Festival have tried their hand at building the most solid igloo or the tallest snow inuksuk.

And this year’s festival from March 25 to March 30 was no exception.

Its main event — for which the festival is best known for — remained its giant snow and ice sculpture competition, where Inuit legends and traditions took shape.

That event goes back to the 1980s, when Paulusie Novalinga, one of the event’s founders, together with famous carvers from Puvirnituq, Jackusie Ittukallak and his brother Peter “Boy,” went to Quebec City.

There, they were invited to represent Canada in the international ice sculpture competition held each year in Quebec City as part of its winter Carnival.

Not only did the three men show the rest of the world what Inuit were capable of when it came to carving and ice, but they went on to win the competition two years in a row, in 1988 and 1989.

When this “Team Canada” got back up north, Novalinga’s idea of a festival in his home community became clear in his mind.

“Why not organize ice and snow sculpture competitions here too, and give people something to look forward to during the long winter months,” he thought.

Having a carnival in Puvirnituq just made sense, he says, because the Puvirnituq winters still produce plenty of snow and ice.

“It’s right here — we don’t even have to collect it,” Novalinga said.

Over the years, evening entertainment has also become an important part of the festival, with performers coming from all around the Arctic, and even from the South, to perform in the Hudson Bay community.

This year’s performers included Sinuupa, Beatrice Deer, Northern Haze, the Innu duo Kashtin, the Inuksuk high school choir, and Qatagiit, four cousins and singers from Quaqtaq, who mixed traditional Inuit and gospel songs with beat box and throat singing.

Dancing was also on the menu, with popular demonstrations of square dances by the Taqalikitaaq and Snow Flakes dancers.

Puvirnituq’s hip hop young star James Hopson, 11, also danced to the rhythm of Baker Lake beat-boxer Nelson Tagoona.

This year, the Snow Festival’s traditional feast, which took place on March 29, Good Friday, was followed by an evening of gospel music.

And when the fun was over, you could head off to sleep in the igloo village built on site, near the Puvirnituq Co-op Hotel. There, visitors could spend night for a flat fee of $50, along with local hosts there to make sure everyone was comfortable.

To top it off, the display of fireworks that usually ends the festival with a bang turned into a special event this year.

Rather than hiring the same pyrotechnics team from the South, the Snow Festival committee brought in Inuit fireworks experts Mark T. Gordon and his younger brother Jobie from Kuujjuaq, who are certified and do fireworks displays on a regular basis in their hometown, whether for New Year’s Eve, Canada Day or the Aqpik Jam.

For the Snow Festival, the Gordons also trained other Inuit as they organized a 45-minute long fireworks show, whose finale left many in awe.

Nunavik’s pyrotechnics experts Mark T. Gordon (in the middle) and his younger brother Jobie (far right), both of Kuujjuaq, stand with some of their fireworks and helpers at the Puvirnituq Snow Festival. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE DUBOIS)