Banff Winter 'Fests: Banff SnowDays & Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival

Sometimes (not often) winter is worth celebrating. Christmas. Snow days. Curling up by the fire while big, fluffy flakes drift slowly to the ground outside. These are all things I actually do enjoy about winter.

In Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, parks personnel take celebrating winter to a whole new level. 

When I gifted my husband a trip to the mountains for his Christmas present this year, we were lucky enough to arrive on the same weekend that both the Banff SnowDays festival AND the Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival were happening. It made the weekend that much more full of interesting and beautiful sights, beyond the usual majesty of a winter mountain vacation.

Banff SnowDays

I will start with the Banff SnowDays festival because we began our holiday in Banff itself. SnowDays had already started by the time we arrived in town, but that was fine with us because it meant all of the snow sculpting was complete and ready for our viewing pleasure! (This year it ran from January 18 to 28, and we were in town from the 19 to the 21.)

The kids marvelling at how close the mountains are to the town of Banff.

Events occur throughout the duration of the SnowDays festival, including snowshoeing hikes, yoga classes, food tastings, geocaching specials, downtown skating DJ parties, tobogganing, and much more. If you are a business in Banff, chances are you entered some sort of event, class, or special into the mix. Most activities were free or extremely cheap to sign up for as well.

Posing with an Inukshuk with my son.

Our intention, when visiting Banff as part of Joey's Christmas present, was not to solely come for the SnowDays festival. We had hiked the Johnston Canyon Ice Walk on the Friday, and I had booked us a Saturday sleigh ride and skating package at Lake Louise before I even knew it was festival weekend in the National Park. So we didn't actually do too many of the SnowDays events - no yoga, snowshoeing, DJ skating parties, or geocaching for us. Our itinerary was already pretty packed.

Tea and books - get cozy at the Bear Street snow carving competition!

However, the festival sure added an extra dimension to our visit. The main feature of this year's SnowDays festival was the snow sculpting competition happening on Bear Street, where six professional snow sculptors were creating amazing things from solid blocks of snow and ice.

The skiing sculpture was extremely detailed, with snow swishing out from beneath his skis.

We made sure not to miss the snow sculpting happening live in the middle of Bear Street during the day time. Watching these masters of snow constructing absolutely incredible images of wolves, skiers, and Inuit people, just to name a few, was so interesting. I was able to interview one gentleman, who admitted it took about four days to sculpt his wolf (which was my favourite, by the way) just because he was a bit of a perfectionist. It certainly showed - his wolf was pretty much perfect in my eyes!

The wolf had to be my favourite snow sculpture - the detail was amazing!

The complete list of sculptures on Bear Street included a boat, a reclining snowman, the skiing man, a family of Inuit people, a stunning bust of a wolf's head, a pack of buffalo surrounding the word 'Banff', and a small Inukshuk.

The Inuit family sculpture was very cute!

There were more massive sculptures on Banff Avenue in a little square park across the street from the Grizzly House (a restaurant that I will post about next week). These sculptures may have lacked the incredible detail of the ones involved in the sculpting competition on Bear Street, but they made up for that in sheer size.

The beaver hibernating inside his den on Banff Avenue.

The largest of the three sculptures featured on Banff Avenue was the massive 20 foot tall momma bear, towering over her inquisitive cub. The next tallest piece was a snowman donning winter goggles, leaning on his ski pole. Finally, a beaver dam made of snow had been hollowed out, allowing viewers to catch a glimpse of the hibernating beaver inside.

We didn't make it to the Banff Avenue display until the Saturday evening of our weekend trip, and loved how it looked illuminated at night. Knowing the sculptures on Bear Street would be lit similarly, we headed over to take a peek.

My kids warming up by a fire pit on Bear Street, Banff.

On the Saturday evening when we visited Bear Street, the sculptures were lit with bright pink and blue colors, and people milled everywhere, drinking free hot chocolate and warming up by multiple fire pits that dotted the snow sculpture area. A DJ played music, turning the event festive: a chilly outdoor street party. We stayed for a bit, but by this time in the night the kids were tired and getting cold, so off we headed to our hotel, the Fox Hotel and Suites, to warm up in their amazing hot tub.

Welcome to Banff, home of massive snow sculptures during SnowDays 2018!

Apparently in the past, Banff REALLY went all out for the SnowDays festival, and activities included over-the-top events such as a village of ice castles and indigenous tipis on Banff Avenue, which was completely closed down, and a full-out toboggan run down the length of Caribou Street. While this year's festivities weren't that hardcore, it was really fun to wander around the town and see what there was to see.

Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival

Running in conjunction with Banff SnowDays is the Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival. Since Lake Louise is about a 45-minute drive from Banff, visitors can easily take in both events in the same weekend.

On our weekend away, we stuck to Banff on Friday, but then drove out to Lake Louise to spend our Saturday skating and riding a sleigh around the banks of the lake. We then returned to Banff to explore the SnowDays festival in the evening. Because we had extra time after our sleigh and skate excursion, we were able to wander around the Ice Magic Festival and enjoy what it had to offer.

Posing outside of the Lake Louise ice castle. 

Getting to the Ice Magic Festival was a bit of a different story, as I mentioned briefly in my Skate and Sleigh Lake Louise post. I had booked this particular weekend randomly, way back in November or October when I was planning my husband's Christmas present. I had phoned the fine people at Lake Louise to book our sleigh ride, and had talked to an employee several times to confirm, yet not once did anyone inform me that I had chosen the Ice Magic Festival weekend to visit. (I am assuming they thought I already knew and had chosen that weekend purposely, so I'm not mad or anything. The lady I talked to was absolutely fantastic.)

This lack of knowledge, however, almost ruined our whole day. I had been informed that we were expected to arrive for our sleigh ride 20 minutes in advance, and I had booked the ride for 2 p.m., so we slid into Lake Louise at 1:20 p.m. with time to spare, or so I thought.

My hopes were dashed when we couldn't even drive past the first stop sign into town. Cars were backed up everywhere, people in neon traffic vests were directing vehicles in to various parking lots, and big road blocks were preventing traffic from actually driving up to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, which was our destination. What was going on?

We were directed into an overflow parking lot on the edge of the village. The attendant let us know we'd arrived in time for the Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival shuttle, which we could find if we walked a block down to the next strip mall. We were not allowed to bring our sled, which we'd packed so the kids could ride on the ice behind us as we skated since they are not adept skaters themselves.

The fox and wolf sculpture was pretty amazing!

With the combination of slow traffic, a long walk from the parking lot, hauling two kids with multiple bags (diaper bag, purse, skate bag, winter gear bag) it took us longer than expected to reach the strip mall. We trundled up to the shuttle buses, turned the corner, and were greeted with a line up of over 100 people. It was 1:35 p.m., and we had to check in at the Brewster's desk at the chateau in five minutes for our sleigh ride. We were never going to make it!

The line moved fairly quickly, however, as the entire Ice Magic Festival was a well-oiled machine and things ran smoothly. It wasn't their fault we were pressed for time - if I had known about the festival, I would have planned accordingly. Oh well. By the time we left the village parking lot, it was 1:45 p.m. I was a bundle of nerves, but my husband was super relaxed and my kids LOVED the bus ride, so that helped to keep me calm.

We made it to the Ice Magic Festival and had a blast!

I won't rehash the entire story, because you can read about in my other post, but we DID make the sleigh ride and it was wonderful. We also skated on the lake, briefly, and enjoyed the mountain view. Because of the confusion of accessing the sleigh ride, which was located INSIDE the roped off grounds of the Ice Magic Festival, the hotel staff gave my family and I free passes to the festival, which are normally $12.50 for adults and $5 for kids over 3. I was very appreciative!

What I do want to describe to you is what the Ice Magic Festival consisted of. We had missed what I think would have been the most interesting part of the festival, which was the actual ice carving competition. When we arrived that Saturday, all of the sculptures were completed and sitting on display. I would have really like to see the artisans with their saws and drills designing their pieces.

A representation of the Calgary Stampede, etched in ice.

No matter. The sculptures were still very beautiful, shimmering in the sunlight of a majestic mountain backdrop. There were several ice carvings dotting the Fairmont Chateau's front lawn within a roped off area, where guests with blue wrist bands were only allowed access.

Within that roped off area was a rectangular plaza constructed of shoulder-height walls of ice, decorated with various ice-carved gargoyles. I snuck a peek inside and was surprised to discover a beer gardens of sorts, all constructed of ice. Obviously with two small children we didn't go inside, so I can't report much more about that.

Entrance to the walled-in beer garden area.

Our favourite part of the Ice Magic Festival was the giant ice castle that had been constructed out on the frozen lake. It was only the front facade of an ice castle, but it featured a main gate, with two walls flanking either side. The walls had a brick pattern carved into them, with turret windows and frozen Canada flags displayed prominently. My kids darted in and out of the gate, around the sides of the walls, and played peek-a-boo with us through the windows. Too fun!

Bricks of ice constitute the foundation of the massive ice castle on Lake Louise.

Other than the ice displays, there wasn't much else to the festival. It featured skating and sleigh rides, but Lake Louise has those activities all of the time in the winter, so I don't know if that really counts as a festival activity; plus, the sleigh rides weren't free. There were snowshoeing trips along some of the lake's trails, but we didn't get to do those with our children in tow. As I said before, the carving competition was probably the highlight of the entire festival. I was happy that we had received our wrist bands for free, because without witnessing the carving itself, I don't know that the festival is actually worth the cost. Just my opinion.

The line-up to access the shuttle bus home was a touch long...

Getting back to our car from the Ice Magic Festival was a bit of an adventure, too! We had to wait in line for quite some time because a tour bus had broken down in the parking lot, blocking traffic and making it nearly impossible for other shuttle buses to enter or exit the lot. We had to wait while everyone from the stalled bus disembarked, found new transportation, and the old bus was towed out of the way so the rest of the shuttles could gain access. At least we weren't in a hurry leaving!

That was our experience of what the Banff National Park 'festival weekend' had to offer. If you love ice and snow sculptures, then definitely this weekend is for you! Has anyone else ever been to these festivals? If so, what events did you participate in, and what was your highlight? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!