WATCH ABOVE: How do we make Edmonton more winter friendly? That will be a big topic of discussion this week and as Eric Szeto reports, ideas will be coming from all over the world.
EDMONTON – Edmonton’s Winter Cities Shake Up is a festival and conference that aims to change the attitudes of people used to avoiding winter.
The three-day event is drawing people from all around the world — including architects, politicians, and business people — focused on sharing ideas on how to make a winter city more enjoyable to live, work, and play.
“I think what we’re trying to recapture is that spirit that kids often have of falling in love with winter,” says Kate Gunn on behalf of the City of Edmonton.
“We’re trying to, as cities around the world, trying to make it easier and more comfortable and just more fun for people to get out and enjoy winter.”
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The conference has three main themes: winter fun, winter design and winter business.
“What this conference is about is it’s a holistic approach to saying ‘We’re a winter city. What can we do to make it the best it possibly can? What are the opportunities we have? How can we design or buildings and our streets so that it’s easy to walk around,'” says Shauna Young, Conference Planning Team.
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Mayor Don Iveson says Edmontonians tend to hibernate during the cold winter months. Experts from Alaska, Iceland and Finland are on hand to share how their cities embrace winter.
“People are outside, they’re cross-country skiing, they’re snow-shoeing, they’re building ice sculptures, they have outdoor markets, and they’re just at home with where they live,” says Iveson.
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The key, according to Shauna Young, is designing a city that makes it easy for residents to get around during the winter, which she says Edmonton is doing.
“The City of Edmonton is working right now on a set of urban designed guidelines, specifically for winter, one of the only, we think, holistic set of guidelines.”
The conference will wrap up with a festival and market in Churchill Square Friday.