The first-time sculptors chiselling a snowy ode to the Métis at Festival du Voyageur

WINNIPEG -

Among the frozen formations at this year's Festival du Voyageur is a snow sculpture created by a first-time group of sculptors connecting to their Métis roots.

The Red River Echoes decided to create a snow sculpture for the first time ever for this year’s Festival. The group is a collective of Métis people, mostly from Manitoba, with the shared goal of reclaiming their space and traditions along with new ones like snow sculpting.

Member Andrée Forest said the group was thinking about how it could work together and enjoy the festival when the idea came to them.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to try our hand at snow sculpting?’ So we just organized from within the group to see who was interested. We ended up with a group of about eight of us,” Forest said.

The group of first-time sculptors decided to create a squirrel. It's an ode to a Red River Echoes member who created a graphic novel about the regal rodents through their master’s research.

The Red River Echoes decided to create a snow sculpture for the first time ever for this year’s Festival du Voyageur.

“It showed how squirrels, just like the Métis, resist borders and colonial infrastructure that exist around us and are creatures to behold when they’re in the world,” Forest explained.

“So we thought we’d create a squirrel to honour our collective member Ellie, and we also named the squirrel Ellie.”

Forest said the group came up with the idea the day of, getting plenty of help from the seasoned artists also creating snow sculptures around them.

“We kind of just took it as it came,” Forest explained. “I think everybody is quite happy to share their knowledge and obviously around us, there are a whole bunch of really experienced sculptors. So we benefited from that and from sharing meals with one another in between sculpting and looking at the work around us.”