Our windy city was just calling for a kite festival and in 1998 creative visionaries at the Art Gallery made it happen. The Windscape Kite Festival organization took over in 2005 and the fun evolved into a major festival held every June on the south hill of Swift Current.
Now the two-day event draws thousands of visitors every year.
After a break for a few years, you know why, the kites are back. I snapped a few photos this past weekend.
The synchronized teams are my favourite, kite flying choreographed to music. It's mesmerizing. Such coordination in the skies reminds me of the Snow Birds aeronautical team or maybe the RCMP Musical Ride, with a lot less risk.
How is it possible that strings from four, or sometimes six, speeding kites flying in formation and crossing over each other, never get tangled up.
Notice the six kites flying behind the guy in the video below.
There's kite building workshops and flying lessons from the pros, a straw bale maze, a mystery sand pile with hidden treasure, craft making, and a kite hospital for free repairs of injured kites.
The whole two-day event is FREE. Such a pleasure these days. Families bring their kites and picnics or buy lunch at the food trucks.
I caught the last few minutes of a creative dance performance and a balancing contortionist. The one-hand pose on the rock was even more challenging in the gusty wind.
At night the big tent becomes a venue for the four-evening Long Day's Night Music Festival so the site infrastructure gets double duty. We managed to stay up till midnight Saturday night for a fun concert with singer Tanika Charles, and rode our bicycles home, carefully and with bright tail lights, on the bike path and empty streets. Saw fireflies along the way. I love biking at night.
Some photos from my archives of previous years, including Marie learning about printmaking from her grand-daughter Jillian.
Professional kite flyers come from across Canada and the US, and over the years guest kite enthusiasts have brought their original kites from Japan, Ukraine, Germany, England, Philippines, Italy and Colombia.
Kids run around to meet the Celebrity Flyers and collect autographs.
The weather isn't always onside. There have been gale-force winds some years that put a stop to everything, or dead silent air that wouldn't lift a child's tissue paper kite. Or ominous clouds and torrential rains. You take your chances.
But more often it's lovely blue skies and cooperative breezes that make for a gorgeous way to spend an afternoon.
Consider this your invitation to come next year.
