The Story of Burning Away the Winter Blues
Almost a decade ago, in 1999, Yukon Educational Theatre created Burning Away the Winter Blues to acknowledge the end of winter and the beginning of spring.
Recognizing the need to throw off winter hardships and celebrate spring and renewal, Yukon Educational Theatre went back to its roots. It created a ritual: an event with no audience, only participants.
We gather at the S.S. Klondike National Historic Site parking lot near the Yukon River in Whitehorse, light torches and hoist up an effigy of the Winter Blues, which is uniquely created each year by local artists. We walk along the riverfront path till we come to Robert Service Campground. A candle-lit path through the woods leads us to a roaring fire. Drummers drum, chanters chant and fire-spinners spin; people visit and talk and finally when the effigy is tossed into the fire, a cheer goes up. The dragon of spring dances, and sunflower seeds, representing sun and spring and hope, are passed out by the young children.
Each year different community groups run the concession. Two to three hundred folks attend. If the weather is cold, the walk is brisk and the fire even more warming. Families come, cyclists come, and everybody (well almost) has something to put into the blues basket to burn.
In 2004, Yukon Educational Theatre received a Road Not Taken Award for Innovation from the Yukon Innovation Centre.
Also in 2004, Burning Away the Winter Blues was featured on the On the Road Again show on CBC Television.
Our event was originally held on the Spring Equinox. However a change occurred beginning in March 2007, when the Yukon territory began advancing Daylight Savings Time earlier than in the past. The event now begins an hour later, but is held on a weekend within a few days of the Equinox, so that everyone can still attend.
In 2007, Yukon Educational Theatre experimented by running a pilot webcast of Burning Away the Winter Blues. In 2008, the first full webcast of the event will occur.
2007 – A Very Special Year for Burning Away the Winter Blues
In February and March 2007, Whitehorse hosted the 2007 Canada Winter Games (CWG), the first time this event has ever been held in the North. As part of the CWG’s cultural festival, Yukon Educational Theatre invited the public to help build the effigy for the 2007 Burning Away the Winter Blues. The communal effigy-building took place in the huge CWG ATCO tent set up in downtown Whitehorse near the Yukon River for the Games. The public was also invited to leave their blues with us for burning. They did this in such great numbers that we were inspired to web cast the event so that folks could see their blues going up in smoke.
Here are some examples of the blues people left behind:
“nerves for swimming tomorrow”
“the family’s mental illness – all of it – forever”
“creepy bosses”
“back-stabbing people”
“cigarettes”
“financial worry”
“cancer”
“extra body fat”
“my kids’ problem lives”
“feelings of apathy and a sense of dullness”
What would your blues be? Go to our Join Us page and send us your blues for burning
Our Artists – Creating an Effigy for Burning
The effigy symbolizing winter plays a key role at every Burning Away the Winter Blues event. Over the past decade, we have been lucky to have a series of talented Yukon artists design and build effigies that create a convincing visual and physical representation of winter. These effigies have all possessed a haunting but haggard beauty, evocative of the sorrows and hardships of a long cold winter.
Our thanks to all the artists who have created (and then helped us to destroy) our effigies of winter:
2008 David Skelton
2007 Sheila Alexandrovich and Neil Graham
2006 Lil Grubach-Hambrooke and Scott Price
2005 Philippe LeBlanc
2004 Nicole Bauberger
2003 Susie Ann Bartsch
2002 Lucille Girard
2001 Susie Anne Bartsch and Moira Sauer
2000 Marina Szijarto
1999 Carolyn Simmons and Jay Cherian
