Sometime near the end of January to the middle of February Fort St John breaks the monotony of winter with the High On Ice Festival.

They do bring in world class ice sculptures to create some pretty magnificent carvings but there are also local competitors made up of teams from local businesses and communities.

One of the early traditions of the event was creating shot glasses and pitchers that were later used to drink a toast with.

Welding in the Park

Fort St John is also the centre for oil and gas development in northern BC and as such it has a large number of people that are employed in the welding trades. So it was only natural for them to create a summer event called Welding in the park, where local welders were given the weekend to create a sculpture. This metal grizzly bear is the product of one of those competitions.