It’s been a good year for the resurgent Great Northern Arts Festival.
Having just wrapped up a jam-packed Christmas Craft Fair and sale, the organization is still beaming after it was named the first NWT Arts Awards “best venue” in September, overtaking heavy hitters like Folk on the Rocks and the Yellowknife Music Festival.
“We weren’t expecting that,” said GNAF president Dieter Weise. “That was pretty exciting. It was great that someone nominated us and they chose to recognize the arts festival as a venue for performers, which it has been for many years.
“And also for the work that we’ve done and are trying to expand upon in being a live performance festival but also a visual arts and traditional crafts festival that can promote our Northern musicians and provide new opportunities for them. It’s a great honour and its wonderful to be acknowledged.”
Weise attributed the GNAF’s success to how steady the festival has been. The GNAF has run for over 30 years, and Weise calls it the platform that has enabled many NWT musicians and artists to kick their careers up a notch. He noted many NWT musicians got their start in part by performing at the festival.
With the three-volunteer run craft fair complete, which Weise joked helped keep the craft fair below capacity, he said the GNAF Society’s focus was switching back to its signature event.
This year was both exciting and challenging, he noted, as the festival was returning to its full capacity. It was reigned in to more of an artists’ workshop in 2021 and had to deal with last minute cancellations during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. That said, Weise noted the festival was still smaller than in past years, largely because organizers were focused on getting the regular schedule of events and services back online.
Next year, Weise hopes to bring more talent back from outside the Northwest Territories, and expand exposure for local artists.
“We were able to bring some musicians from outside the territory, which has always been a focus — bringing talent from across the North to Inuvik,” he said. “Hopefully next year we can use this award to promote the festival to new performers who might be interested in coming here. Both experienced performers and emerging artists as a place where they can both learn from older artists and gather experience and be able to develop audiences for themselves.