Hub Staff

It’s certainly not unusual to see snow being removed from the streets of Saugeen Shores at this time of year, what’s not often seen is it being brought back. But later this month that’s exactly what’s going to happen, truck loads of snow will be brought into the downtown core and dumped into Coulter Parkette, creating a "snow mountain" for a new Family Day weekend event, Snow Fest.

Spearheaded by the Port Elgin BIA, Snow Fest was the brainchild of Port Elgin local Steff Allen after she saw a story on another winter festival, Fire and Ice, held in downtown Bracebridge, where their main street is transformed for the late January event. Allen thought that Port Elgin could do something similar and was put in touch with the BIA. “We only started planning it a week or two ago,” said Allen February 3.

Although some elements of the Port Elgin festival are still being finalized, snow painting, snowmen and sculptures, vendors, games and activities are all planned to be part of the three day festival.

“There's definitely going to be a snow hill being brought in and I'm going to provide snow paint so the kids can basically graffiti all over the snow hill. It's just food colouring based water, so you can do all kinds of painting there,” said Allen. “There should be hot chocolate and I believe there'll be a fire pit with s’mores.” Allen added that vendors were being contacted to participate.

Port Elgin BIA President Jeff Carver said he was excited about the new event. “It's going to be a lot of fun,” he said. “Who knows what it turns into.” Carver said he had submitted a road closure application to the Town to close Green Street from Goderich Street to Waterloo Street and they were working with Public Works to transport snow back into town.

The road closure request is expected to be presented to Council February 13.

Snow Fest will run Saturday, Sunday and Monday, February 18, 19 and 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day and Allen said she is currently on the look-out for volunteers to help out at the event.

If anyone is interested in lending a hand, they are asked to contact Steff Allen by phone at 519-832-2997 or by e-mail at steffallen08@gmail.com.