Feb 5-15, 2027 • Hawrelak Park
Edmonton's longest running winter festival!
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Feb 5-15, 2027 • Hawrelak Park
Edmonton's longest running winter festival!
Happily Ever After, Again!
For years, our nomadic performers have delighted audiences by acting out a story on the festival’s Folk Trail. Wearing glowing costumes, surrounded by beautiful glowing lanterns, and interacting with audiences in-character, the trail has become a family favourite over the years. We are very excited to continue this tradition in 2026!
This year, we will be bringing back a beloved part of the Folk Trail: The Folk Trail Story Tent! You can warm up while enjoying a pair of stories acted out by our Folk Trail Bards before heading off down the trail to meet and interact with the characters from the stories out on the trail.
Actors will be animating the trail and Story Tent on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 5pm to 7:30pm. After that, the actors will lead a procession from the Lantern Making Tent to the nightly Fire Sculpture Burn.
Director - Sarah Emslie (they/she) is a queer theatre artist based in amiskwaciwâskahikan, Treaty 6. They hold a BFA from the University of Alberta in Acting; select directing credits include 100 Foreskins for my Hand in Marriage (Fork & Shoe Theatre Co-op), Binding (Calla Wright), and The Debut (Assistant, HOY! Productions). As a performer they have had the pleasure of working with companies like Tiny Bear Jaws, Small Matters Productions, Catch the Keys, and the Major Matt Mason Collective. Outside of their directing and performance practice, they are the Associate Producer with Common Ground Arts, and work year-round to bring countless exciting productions and events to life.
Playwright - Ashleigh Hicks is a playwright/dramaturg/producer/clown, born and raised in Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island, NS) and currently based in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, AB). They hold a BA Honours Drama (First Class Standing) from the University of Alberta, and trained in clown and neo-bouffon at One North Clown & Creation and the Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation & Performance, where they were a 2018 artist-in-residence. As a playwright, their works have been presented with the Edmonton Fringe Festival, Theatre Network’s Nextfest, the Skirtsafire Festival, Vancouver’s About Love Festival, Montreal’s Rose Festival, RISER Edmonton, and Common Ground Arts Society’s Found Festival, where they were the 2023-2024 Fresh A.i.R. artist-in-residence. This residency culminated in the premiere of Brick Shithouse (dir. Sarah J Culkin), which received six Elizabeth Sterling Hayes Awards, including Outstanding Independent Production and Outstanding New Play. Ash’s academic background is focused on care ethics in new play development, and in 2024, Ash started fenceless theatre, an ad-hoc collective focused on themes of class consciousness in large ensemble works.
Folk Trail Lantern Artist – Mell Wolfinger is thrilled to be returning for another magical year with the Silver Skate Festival. She will put her skills and creative flair towards bringing yet another Folk Trail alive with lights, lanterns, and whimsy.
Folk Trail Snow Carver - Jeremy McConville
Costumer and Storytelling Tent Decorator – Meegan Sweet is a queer multidisciplinary artist, creator and clown based in amiskwacîwâskahikan (colonially known as Edmonton, Alberta). Meegan holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Alberta (2020) as well as a diploma in Theatre Performance and Creation from Red Deer Polytechnic (Red Deer College, 2016). When they’re not doing theatre, they are usually birdwatching or volunteering at WILDNorth as a Wildlife Rehabilitator and Helpline Operator. Select acting credits include, Stars On Her Shoulders (Emma Ross - Workshop West Playwrights Theatre), The Shiniest Piece of Trailer Trash (S.P.O.T.T.) (Performer & Creator - Edmonton International Fringe Festival, What The Festival Toronto, Edmonton Fringe Theatre), The Tempest (Ariel - Freewill Shakespeare Festival. Select costume design credits include Rat Academy & Rat Academy 2: Gnaw and Order and The Shiniest Piece of Trailer Trash.
Storytelling Tent Cast – Emma Schneider is a recent graduate of the University of Alberta’s English and Drama
programs and an emerging queer and neurodivergent writer, performer, and theatre maker. Emma’s artistic practice spans from TYA to Shakespeare, and their work often explores her own queer & autistic experience, both onstage and on the page. Recent performance credits include Celeste in Celestial Being (Concrete Theatre), Esther in Act of Contrition (New Works Festival), and Chloe in the short film Nemesis (coming 2026).
Storytelling Tent Cast – Aidan Laudersmith is an Alberta-based artist, living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (colonially known as Edmonton). He graduated from the University of Alberta’s Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Acting program. Recent credits include: Peril in the Alps (Vertigo Theatre), The Noon Witch (Teatro Live!), Witch (Bleviss Laboratory Theatre), Troilus and Cressida, Indecent (Studio Theatre). Aidan was also the Arts Administrator for Silver Skate two years ago and is so excited to return to the festival, this time in a performance role!
Storytelling Tent Cast – Moses Kouyaté is a queer Afrikan performer raised in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan. They hope to create art that may inspire the masses, and to allow audiences to discover things they’ve never seen before. As a great lover of theatre, music and dance, Moses is ever grateful to share the wonders of storytelling and collaboration with the beautiful Edmonton theatre community.
Roving Cast – Kijo Eunice Gatama is a multidisciplinary artist based in Edmonton, Alberta, working across playwriting, acting, dance, and artistic direction. They specialize in performance theatre, Afrocentric dramaturgy, and esoteric studies, grounded in interdisciplinary and community-forward practice. Recent credits include Dance Nation (Skirtsafire 2025), Hyena’s Trail (Here for Fear Collective, 2025), and upcoming productions with Skirtsafire, Shadow Theatre, and Jabulani. Their playwriting explores folklore and Queer Afro-Canadian experiences. An excerpt of Hyena’s Trail appears in Alberta’s Black Creators Anthology (2027), next year published.
Roving Cast – Erin Pettifor is an interdisciplinary queer theatre artist based in Treaty 6 / Edmonton. In the 2023 Edmonton Fringe she premiered her solo Sterling Award winning show Stigma, Pistil and Style, directed by her friend and colleague Jacqueline Russell, the Head Hag of Wee Witches. She and Russell are currently working on her next solo show featuring her drag king character Earl Grey with dramaturgical insight from Elena Eli Belyea. In 2023, Erin performed in Larrikin Entertainment’s, WYRD, a new musical that toured through the Yukon and Victoria. She has had the pleasure of being an artist in residence with Evergreen Theatre, working with children and youth on the creation of theatre. Most recently, Erin performed in FEED, a new contemporary dance work led by Tia Kushniruk as part of the Mile Zero Dance 2025 lab and in Little Women as Beth in the 2025 production at The Citadel Theatre directed by Jenna Rodgers. This is Erin’s second time performing on the folk trail at the Silver Skate Festival and she couldn’t be more excited to share stories and connect with the community this winter!
Roving Cast – Jacquelin Walters is a local multidisciplinary theatre artist and musician. They are so excited to be a part of the folk trail at this year's Silverskate festival! Recent creative credits include DMV (director, Earless Joe), Let’s Not Turn On Each Other (playwright/producer, Walters & Watt), Tomato Girl (playwright, Uof A’s New Works festival), What Was Is All (playwright/producer, Walters & Watt). Recent performance credits include Reign Check (FoundFest, dir. Erin Pettifor), Televangelists (Dog-Bite theatre, dir. Nicole Maloney), Shrek: The Musical (Nuova Vocal Arts, dir. Kim Wanat), Girls Can Eat Now (NewWorks 2025 dir. Aidan Collins), Witch (Bleviss Laboratory Theatre dir. Alissa Watson), Let’s Not Turn On Each Other (Edmonton Fringe, dir Nicole Maloney), Troilus and Cressida (Studio Theatre, dir. Brett Dahl), Indecent (Studio Theatre, dir. Ben Smith), and Helen (Trunk Theatre, dir. Amy DeFelice). Upcoming: The Revolutionists (Shadow Theatre).
Folk Trail and Live Theatre Coordinator – Charlie Peters (ze/hir/hirs) is a theatre and opera director, actor, lighting designer, playwright, dramaturge, poet, arts educator, and clown based on Treaty 6 Territory. Hir artistic work has been seen on stages (and in parks, fields, school gyms, living rooms, town squares, art galleries, and swimming pools) across Canada and in Europe. Ze holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Saskatchewan, an MFA in Theatre Practice and an MA in Gender and Social Justice Studies from the University of Alberta, and has trained extensively at the Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation and Performance. Ze is the recipient of Saskatoon and Area Theatre Awards for Outstanding Emerging Artist (2013) and Outstanding Lighting Design (Two Corpses Go Dancing, 2015), having been nominated for Outstanding Direction (Diana Son’s Stop Kiss, 2014) and Outstanding Original Script/Excellence in New work (Many Fires, 2019; Oblong and Oboe Stir The Pot, 2024). Charlie is Founding Director of Embrace Theatre and Folk Trail and Live Theatre Coordinator of the Silver Skate Festival where hir projects have been nominated for multiple Sterling Awards. Hir scholarly work has been published in Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, Comedy Studies, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Dramaturgy and History: Staging the Archive (Routledge), and on HowlRound. Hir artistic work is anthologized in This Is Beyond: A Time Capsule of Queer Experience (Playwrights Canada Press) and Poetry All Over The Floor (Tonight It’s Poetry Press). charliepeters.ca
Our Mission: To provide for the education and enlightenment of Canadians about Canadian winter history, outdoor winter activities, and winter art forms and the promotion of the physical, mental and spiritual health and wellbeing of Canadians particularly during the winter months.
