Snowking Winter Festival
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The Snowking's Winter Festival is an annual festival held each March in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada.
The festival is a major winter tourist draw to Yellowknife. It centres around the snow castle, built from snow blocks with window panes of ice. Each winter the castle is built on Yellowknife Bay, on Great Slave Lake. The castle is designed and the construction is supervised by Snowking, Anthony Foliot, also known as Tony Below, host of a popular morning radio show. The design changes every year and sometimes the castle has more than one storey. Visitors can even pay to stay a night in the Snowtel rooms of the castle.
Carvers augment the castle with snow and ice sculptures. Once it is completed, the snow castle becomes the centre of winter arts activity in Yellowknife, including concerts, art shows, theatre and a fireworks show. This year (2007) the castle will include a cafe serving hot drinks and soups and it also boasts the Snowtastic Slide Ride. The castle is bulldozed at the close of each festival, at the end of March.
Over the years, the snow castle has hosted six weddings.
