My girlfriend and I LRT'd it (subway) to the university then walked down to William Hawrelak Park to enjoy one of if not
Edmonton's best festivals. We then walked the 30-45mins home.
Enjoy
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The Festival History
In 1974 the Government of Alberta, acting through Minister of Culture Dr. Horst A. Schmidt, planted the seeds of the
Edmonton Heritage Festival by declaring the first Monday in August an annual holiday to recognize and celebrate the varied cultural heritage of Albertans. That year and again in 1975, a multicultural concert was held at Fort
Edmonton Park to celebrate Heritage Day. In 1976, however, eleven ethno-cultural communities banded together in Edmonton’s Hawrelak Park for a display of their cultures’ traditional cuisine, entertainment, interpretive materials, and crafts.
From these humble beginnings a venerable August long-weekend institution has emerged: the
Edmonton Heritage Festival is now in its 33nrd year of operation, and has grown from a one-day event into a three-day celebration of cultural diversity with pavilions ranging from Aboriginal to Welsh, and all points between.
Since its inception, attendance at The
Edmonton Heritage Festival has, with a few weather-related exceptions, climbed steadily, culminating in a record 370,000-420,000 people in attendance during the 2006 edition. Our mission is to promote public awareness, understanding and appreciation for cultural diversity through an annual summer festival as well as to provide educational events, programs and/or projects on a year-round basis.
The
Edmonton Heritage Festival is specifically designed to be a family-friendly, alcohol-free event, in which each pavilion is able independently to offer a sampling of their unique foods, entertainment, arts and crafts, and customs. Patrons of the
Edmonton Heritage Festival have also been responsible for making our event the
Edmonton Food Bank’s single largest annual food drive, wherein approximately 50,000 kilograms of food is collected each year.
The Festival is organized by the non-profit
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association, with new offices at 10125-157 Street.
http://www.heritage-festival.com/
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It was a very busy day there...
Western Edge of the downtown
Our amazing river valley - lots of jet boats and canoes out and about
Victoria Golf course and range...gorgeous and public
old, new, hiding
University (right) and southern valley skyline
The white tent poking up on the middle left is where the festival was
Gaz + University
gorgeous
one of my fav buildings in our city
eclectic to say the least
My GF saw this and said to me, "it looks like a skyline"...i couldnt agree more
One of the main multi-use trails downtown with trolley tracks
Home sweet Home
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Fun Festival Facts
It costs the
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association an average of $500,000 per year to showcase the annual Heritage Festival.
The
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association has just completed the creation of four new pavilion sites in Hawrelak Park. These four additional sites come equipped with electrical and water hook-ups. This 2007 addition to Hawrelak Park will increase the maximum number of yearly participants in the Heritage Festival from 58 pavilions to 63 pavilions. As always, these upgrades will also benefit other events in Hawrelak Park, such as Bright Nights, the Triathlon, King of the Klondike, and Symphony Under the Sky.
2004 The
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association completed a $75,000 upgrade to the electrical system in Hawrelak Park. This project was financed by the
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association, the Community Facility Enhancement Program, and the City of
Edmonton. The improvements include upgrades to the electrical panels, pedestals, a power supply for operations, as well as an additional 200 amp underground service. These upgrades will be used, not only by the
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association, but by Bright Nights, the Triathlon, King of the Klondike, Symphony Under the Sky, and many other events featured in Hawrelak Park.
The Festival's attendance record of over 350,000 was achieved in 2006, although more than 340,000 people came out in both 1991 and 1992.
A proud moment: in 1999 the Festival was designated as one of the Top 100 Events in North America by the American Bus Association (ABA), the trade organization of the motor coach tour industry.
The first Heritage Festival information website went on-line in 1996.
1995 saw the installation of a $300,000 electrical grid upgrade system with electrical outlets to service fifty sites around the interior periphery of Hawrelak Park. The upgrade included three new transformers, distribution panels, and the ability to service each site with 100 amps of power.
Through much of its history, the Festival was a two-day event, taking place over the Sunday and Monday of the Heritage-Day long weekend. It was extended to three days in 1993, and has remained so ever since.
Our popular mascot Buddy the Beaver was born in 1991. At the time, Festival organizers had difficulty choosing his name. As a note in that year's Souvenir Guide reported, "Bucky, Beno, Beulah . . . we've even tried ELVIS, but our beaver has refused them all!" In the end, Buddy's name was chosen by the public in a contest.
The 1987 Festival was particularly notable for its theme of "Come-Along-and-Conga." That year, participants set a world record for the longest conga line ever of 10,442 people-an achievement recognized by a framed certificate from the Guinness Book of Records which hangs in the Festival offices to this day.
In 1986, the Festival introduced the Nena Timperley Award for Excellence in Pavilion Management. Nena Timperley, affectionately known to a generation of Edmontonians as "Mrs. Multiculturalism," was the Heritage Festival Association's President from 1982 to 1986. Lately, the Arabic pavilion has won this award for the past five years running.
The tradition of picking a special theme phrase to lend a unique element each year goes right back to the Festival's early days. Some of these have included "The Total Ethnic Experience" (1981), "A Kaleidoscope of Culture" (1985), "Fiddle Around the World" (1988), "Our Family . . . The World" (1990), "Send a Message to the World . . . We're Proud of Our Heritage" (1996), and "Stirring up Fun" (2001).
In 1983, the Festival opened its site to
Edmonton's Food Bank as a collection point for food donations. The Festival has become the Food Bank's single largest annual food drive, with attendees often contributing more than 50,000 kilograms of food. That amount remains the goal for this year, so please do bring along a non-perishable food item to help us meet it.
Mainstage performers of past Festivals have included Ian Tyson, The Rovers, Legendary
Edmonton fiddler Ron Boychuk, the Emeralds, and, in 1983, Heino, billed as "Germany's No. 1 Superstar."
Also in 1987, the first Citizenship Ceremony hosted by Citizenship and Immigration Canada during the Festival took place at the Amphitheatre. That ceremony, in which forty candidates became Canadian citizens, was presided over by Judge Margaret Osbaldeston of the Court of Canadian Citizenship (later to become a Heritage Festival board member in her own right) and the Honourable David Crombie, Secretary of State.
Edmonton's "Black Friday" tornado struck just as the 1987 Heritage Festival was being set up in Hawrelak Park, severely damaging most of the Festival's tent inventory and therefore putting that year's entire Festival in peril. People involved in the Heritage Festival back then still warmly remember how an impromptu group of volunteers from different cultural organizations came together at the site and went from tent to tent making enough repairs to allow the Festival to proceed that weekend. Although the weather continued inclement throughout the weekend, 140,000 people attended that year.
Current Alberta Minister of Community Development Gene Zwozdesky served on the Festival's board of directors for several years in the 1980s. For the 1982 Festival, he also wrote original music and lyrics for "Then & When," a gala Festival song-and-dance revue.
The
Edmonton Heritage Festival Association spearheaded the building of Hawrelak Park’s Heritage Amphitheatre. We celebrated the official opening of the $1.7 million Heritage Festival Amphitheatre, designed by noted architect Stephen Lu, in Hawrelak Park in 1986. The Amphitheatre is Western Canada's largest outdoor seating venue with 1,100 theatre-style seats, along with grass seating for 2,000.
Long-time Edmontonians may remember an ambitious plan of the late 1970s to construct a new home for the Festival, "Anniversary Festival Park," in the river valley downtown next to the then-new convention centre. The plan, calling for extensive landscaping and a permanent stage, was meant to result in "
Edmonton's first action-oriented park."
The first Heritage Festival Ball was held in April at the University of Alberta in 1979 as a fundraiser for the Festival. This event continued annually until 1987.
Although the Festival is often incorrectly referred to as "Heritage Days" or "The Heritage Days Festival," it has in fact always officially been called "The
Edmonton Heritage Festival." Common explanations: for one, the Provincial Holiday is in fact called “Heritage Day”; for another, our festival has long occurred shortly after Klondike Days on Edmonton’s summer events calendar.
Over the years, more than seventy groups have presented cultural pavilions at the Heritage Festival at one time or another.
In 1974 and 1975, a Heritage Day concert was held at Fort
Edmonton Park with performers from several ethnic communities. However, it was in 1976 that eleven ethno-cultural organizations set up pavilions for one day in
Edmonton's Mayfair Park (renamed William Hawrelak Park in 1982), thus marking the first
Edmonton Heritage Festival in its current form. Attendance that year was 20,000. By 1978, thirty pavilions were taking part, and annual attendance first surpassed 100,000 by 1979.
The
Edmonton Heritage Festival's roots date to 1974, when the Government of Alberta, through then-Minister of Culture, Dr. Horst A. Schmid, declared the first Monday in August an annual holiday for recognizing and celebrating the ethnic heritage of Alberta's citizens.
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