Newest warming huts take their place at The Forks, inviting imagination, companionship, exploration

Final preparations are happening on Winnipeg's frozen rivers as the latest warming huts are being installed and completed.

"We're down to the wire," said Winnipeg artist Wanda Koop, who teamed with former EQ3 creative director and furniture designer Thom Fougere to create a structure they say is inspired by the beauty of a Winnipeg winter.

Titled Nix, which means "snow" in Latin, the piece draws inspiration from Koop's painted images.

"We talked a lot about Wanda's paintings and translating them to a spatial experience,"  Fougere said. "We call it an inhabitable sculpture — it's a light labyrinth."

Like much of Koop's work, Nix "features long views and landscapes, alight with reflection and moments in space," says a description on the website highlighting the 2023 warming huts competition winners.

The annual competition — now in its 13th year — invites artists and architects to design structures that give people a place to warm up, and art to admire, along the Nestaweya River Trail, which runs along the Assiniboine and Red rivers each winter, and at Arctic Glacier Winter Park at The Forks.

WATCH | The newest warming huts on Winnipeg's river trail:

New warming huts on the Nestaweya River Trail

2 years ago

Duration 2:28

Warming huts go up up on the Nestaweya River Trail at The Forks every year. They were originally meant to provide a way to get out of the wind and warm up, but the huts have evolved over the years to become part shelter, part art installation.

This year's competition opened to entries last July and received 122 submissions from 33 countries. Three winners were selected by a jury in October and announced in November. Three other creations come from artists invited to contribute, including Koop and Fougere.

"We're just thrilled to be here and be part of it — just feel very honoured," Koop said during a Friday news conference at The Forks featuring the creators of this year's huts.

"One of the more beautiful aspects of it is, if you all stay around long enough, when the spring happens, apparently, when the rest of the river is going to melt, Nix will hopefully float down the Red River, and hopefully all the way to Lockport."

Another of this year's new warming huts is Hayspace, designed by Switzerland's Philipp Gmür and Hugh Taylor, who is originally from Winnipeg and now lives in Boston.

It's made of hay, string, metal and wood, with a shape that's a nod to the hay bales that dot the Prairie landscape, according to the description.

"This is a soft and cuddly and warm project. It's really delightful," said Peter Hargraves of Sputnik Architecture, one of the organizers of the annual competition, at Friday's announcement.

Meanwhile We Still Dream, designed by Lindo Jia and Jaymon Diaz from Seattle, is described as a migrating northern herd of beasts.

The colourful series of shapes that make up the installation invite people to step in and pick up the rope linking the creatures and join the migration.

"We wanted to explore the idea of 'what is warmth, what is home?' Maybe it's not so much about a destination that makes us feel home, maybe it's the journey," said Jia.

"It is along the way, maybe when we find good companionship, good friends, and we stick together.

"Warmth, in this case, is not necessarily the temperature, but rather the feeling inside of us."

Curtain, designed by Barcelona's Alejandro Felix and Shanghai's Fang Cui, is exactly that — a curtain of ice "like a frozen waterfall," its description says, with walls creating a space that protects people from the wind.

The framework of timber and biodegradable ropes was built up through the addition of river water which gradually froze, building up along the guides established by the ropes.

St. John's High School in Winnipeg was also invited to contribute an entry. Students and staff designed Azhe'o, which means "to paddle backwards" in Ojibway.

It was constructed "with the purpose of exploring the history of the canoe and paddle from their inception," its description reads, and meant to show the importance of the canoe to the Indigenous people of Canada.

WATCH | St. John's High School contributes warming hut Azhe'o:

St. John’s High School's warming hut Azhe’o

2 years ago

Duration 2:32

Final preparations are happening on Winnipeg's frozen rivers as the latest warming huts are being installed and completed. A group of students from St. John’s High School designed the warming hut Azhe’o, which means 'to paddle backwards' in Ojibway.

St. John's is the first high school team to be part of the official warming huts program.

"It is remarkable, it is beautiful, it is poignant," said Sputnik's Hargraves.

The University of Manitoba's faculty of architecture will also be represented through a submission called Flowing Lands, a nod to the fluid motion of a Prairie winter.

The six new huts have now been placed along the Nestaweya River Trail and in Arctic Glacier Winter Park, along with returning huts from years past.

For the first time, free walking tours of warming huts will be offered on Saturdays this year — Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, 11 and 18 at 1 p.m. Guests must register for their free ticket as space is limited.

There will also be a free outdoor concert to celebrate this year's warming huts competition at The Forks on Friday at 7:30 p.m, featuring appropriately-named local bands Warming and Lev Snowe.

They'll perform at Festival du Voyageur's Boîte à chansons by the Canopy Rink.