14th annual Sunrise Festival attracts hundreds
Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services
Inuvik (Jan 12/01) - Following tradition, Inuvik residents welcomed the return of the sun with a bang.
The sun poked over the horizon Saturday for the first time in 2001, and the 14th annual Sunrise Festival was held that evening at the old airport strip. Hundreds gathered around the two bonfires, seeking warmth amidst the freezing temperatures.
A $10,000 fireworks display capped off the celebrations. Members of the Inuvik firefighters put on the fireworks. Overseeing the show was Rick Lindsay, magazine foreman and technician with Blue Smoke Fireworks Ltd. in Calgary, Alberta.
Lindsay said things went well, despite a few flash overs (falling embers igniting fuses, thus sending off some items prematurely).
"You have to expect that kind of stuff, especially tonight, when it was so clear and calm," Lindsay said. "There was no wind to blow anything away. So it was just going straight up and straight back down."
He explained that the flash overs resulted in a few gaps in the show.
"There were things planned to be going that were gone already. So it left a little bit of a hole but it made some parts of the show really intense," Lindsay said.
"We had planned to do as close to 20 minutes as we could. With the flash overs we had and things like that, I think we ran real close to 15 minutes."
Lindsay said it took about two days to actually load the fireworks and about an hour at the site to prepare for the show. In addition, he spent 15 minutes preparing the little pieces in the snowbank right in front of the crowd. These pieces lit simultaneously near the end.
Lindsay also spent about 30 minutes getting the First Air sign ready. This sign was lit early in the performance. First Air had sponsored the flight up for Lindsay and the fireworks.
Other sponsors for the festival were the Town of Inuvik, the Inuvialuit Corporate Group and Explosives Ltd.
Lindsay lived in Inuvik for 10 years and began shooting the festival in 1991, with a fireworks budget of $3,000.
Brian Desjardins, tourism and fund-raising co-ordinator for the Town of Inuvik, said he'd like next year's Sunrise Festival to be even bigger and better. He said one way to accomplish that would be to establish a Sunrise Festival committee, made up of groups and organizations in town.
