Winter holds centre ice in the heart of Chad Cooke, president of the Orillia and District Agricultural Society (ODAS).
Full of giddy excitement, he described Severn Winterfest’s 20-foot-tall ice slide, the homemade ice rink over coloured LED lights and the snow-carved living room accented with an ice bar, created with chunks hauled from Lake Couchiching.
But it turns out climate change and uncertain winters have affected local businesses and organizations such as Severn Winterfest.
After constructing the Orillia Winter Carnival ice castle for years, Cooke spent a night in Quebec at the famously icy Hôtel de Glace. He arranged for a backstage tour led by the ice hotel engineers and was thrilled to learn about its construction.
He knew he could build something similar for Severn Winterfest. Armed with wooden forms, a tractor and a small group of personal friends co-opted as volunteers, construction began. The lumitalo was full of tunnels and chambers kids could run in and out of safely, and it was a huge hit.
But there won’t be a Winterfest this year. Even though it reliably brings 3,000 attendees and raises five figures for ODAS, it has become impossible to plan around our winters.
In 2022, just as attendees were leaving, it began raining. Hundreds of volunteer hours worth of work melted — after the event, thankfully, but it was too close. The next day was 14 degrees Celsius and the entire grounds were under water.
In 2024, there wasn’t enough ice to create the ice bar, the main feature of the fundraising dance. Numerous events were cancelled. Severn Winterfest has been held in January, February and March to try to find more reliable weather. No dice. The staff and board of ODAS Park no longer feel confident they can plan a winter festival with the necessary snow.
Climate change is affecting our organizations. This reliable fundraiser can no longer be held. This year’s traditional winter is all the more heartbreaking. Based on their recent experience, how could volunteers and organizers have known there’d be enough snow this year?
It’s hard to know what to do about climate change. It’s such a daunting issue. It feels like the changes we have to make are insurmountable and that we’ll never get enough people to make them.
There are solutions, though. Protecting land in its natural state is one of the best ways to mitigate climate change. Trees and plants filter carbon out of the air and wetlands absorb water back into the soil, two things buildings, driveways and roads simply can’t do. The more protected natural areas we have, the better we can handle weather changes. The good news is there is already work being done, not just across the country, but locally.
I want to introduce you to a group of people forging ahead. Nine board members, 10 staff and hundreds of volunteers at the Couchiching Conservancy work as hard as they can to preserve the natural terrain around us. I think one of the reasons we have so many volunteers is because when you feel powerless about a larger issue, the best thing to do is something.
Canada, along with 195 other countries, has signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which promises to protect 30 per cent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. The Couchiching Conservancy has quietly been trying to do just that since 1993.
Climate change is impacting local events like Winterfest and organizations like ODAS. There is work to do to protect our winters and behaviours to change. We invite you to learn about the Couchiching Conservancy and the nature reserves in our area, some with trails and some without. Please visit couchichingconserv.ca/what-we-do/properties.
Meg Whitton, formerly of Bounce Radio, now works in conservation at the Couchiching Conservancy. This column looks at how climate change is affecting our area and what we can do about it. If you have a story about how climate change has affected your organization or business, please email Meg at [email protected].