The Silver Skate Festival
Today is “Ash Wednesday” . So before I get started to tell you a bit about the “Silver Skate Festival” I’d like to share this poem with you (by Jan Richardson)…..
Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
—Jan Richardson
The mission of the Silver Skate Festival Society is to provide a free family-oriented winter celebration blending sport, recreation, arts and culture, showcasing various skating disciplines and promoting outdoor activities in Alberta.
Our daughter, Emily, was asked to do a very unusual job for this ‘longest running’ festival in Alberta.
No biggie : she just had to build an approximately fifteen foot sculpture just in order for it to be set on fire that evening!
Emily worked with a guy who has done this kind of thing before and his idea was to build up (from crates) the kind of structure that would turn into a little ‘tornado of fire’ in a wind tunnel of sorts.
They almost didn’t even get to light it up because the winds were so strong. 25 km.’s an hour was the permit limit and that day it was 26…ha ha.
Em said she can’t ever remember being that cold. She worked outside from 8 a.m. until 9:30 p.m.!
But the winds died down long enough to get the sculpture lit ….and it worked!
The winter festival returned to celebrate winter sport, recreation, arts & culture, and the return of live music in William Hawrelak Park from February 11 – 21, 2022.
They had maple syrup taffy rolling in snow, massive snow sculptures everywhere, and the return of a speed skating competition.
Folks were encouraged to explore the Imperial Oil Folk Trail, the TC Energy Heritage Village, and listen to local Indigenous elders' oral histories via Night Sky ᐋᒋᒧᐃᐧᐣ âcimowin story-telling, and SO much more!
“How fast you can skate Silver Skate's traditional 1km race loop on the pond - can you beat the record for most loops in an hour?” People tried to push themselves to achieve their personal bests in the Mammoet Sporting Challenges and entered their times to win great prizes!
It truly is an exciting event and one of the many that are trying to remind people in our winter city of Edmonton that life is good here….despite months of snow and cold.
Photos courtesy of Emily Bachynski and Silver Skate Instagram.
Peace friends. Just as the fire took down the beautiful, strong sculpture till it was only dust (that Emily and her friends built), may your Lenten Season remind you that all are from dust and to dust all return.
May this journey bring you ever closer to the One who knows not only what the world is going through but what WE are going through . He’s got this.