Winnipeg’s Festival du Voyageur is western Canada’s largest winter festival and has its origins in colonial Canada when the fur trade expanded to western Canada in 1810 and employees of the Northwest Company started building Fort Gibraltar at the southeast corner of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In 1970, Métis activist, Georges Forest founded Festival du Voyageur in its present form, generating nearly $13 million in economic activity to the local economy while averaging 100,000 attendees.
This year’s rendition of the 2023 Festival du Voyageur promises to have more Indigenous activities including the “return … [of the] infinity fire … serving as a gathering place to honour the Red River Métis”.
This year’s events and activities can be found online on the Festival du Voyageur’s website.