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Photograph by Cariwest Festival courtesy of Travel Alberta
By Caitlin Crawshaw
Fifty years ago, the Alberta government declared the first Monday in August Heritage Day, in honour of the province’s growing cultural diversity and the value of multiculturalism. Within a couple of years, ethnocultural communities across Alberta were celebrating the occasion.
As a child growing up in Edmonton, I keenly remember the three-day Edmonton Heritage Festival: gobbling up green onion cakes from the Chinese pavilion, and begging my parents for a conical straw hat from the Vietnam pavilion. I brought my own child to the festival for the first time decades later. My then-toddler begged for practically every handicraft she spotted, then gulped down my mango lassi and churros while I was distracted by Ukranian dancing. Kids these days.
I missed out on this year’s festival because it closed a day early after a storm ripped through the site. Thankfully, Alberta magazines are a great resource for learning about cultural celebrations throughout the year. Here are a few options for anyone seeking multicultural fun in August.
There’s plenty of heritage celebrations in Alberta’s capital city this month, beginning with Cariwest (August 9-11). The three-day Caribbean arts festival features flamboyant parades with live music and dancing, and cuisine that brings the heat.
For a change of pace, weekly Alberta Avenue Night Markets celebrate the district’s diversity and feature live performances, food, handicrafts, and other wares. For more information, check out “25 Things to Do in Edmonton this August” in the latest issue of EDify magazine.
As summer comes to a boil in Calgary, festival season peaks and there are plenty of cultural celebrations to be found. The Bump Festival (August 3-18) is a city-wide festival exploring multiculturalism and diversity with murals and other outdoor art. The Where Calgary article “Celebrating Diversity & New Perspectives Through Public Art at the Bump Festival” has all the details.
GlobalFest (August 15-24) features cultural pavilions, live music, a night market, international food vendors, and nightly fireworks. The annual Calgary Dragon Boat Race & Festival (August 9-11) event at North Glenmore Park showcases nearly 2,000 competitors racing colourful dragon boats down the river. (Learn all about the competition with Avenue Calgary’s “Everything You Need To Know About Dragon Boat Racing in Calgary”).
For more on annual festivals and cultural celebrations in Calgary, Avenue Calgary features “12 Calgary Festivals to Check Out” in their August 2024 issue.
Carry your festival spirit through to September, and up to Fort McMurray, with the Athabasca Tribal Council Cultural Festival (September 12-15). Learn about last year’s ATC Cultural Festival, a “uniquely Indigenous and fully immersive” celebration, in Your McMurray Magazine.