Have fun at The Forks. QUICK, before it's gone! Seriously . . .

After some unseasonably warm weather in Winnipeg, the river trail at The Forks is finally open, and warming huts are being set up on the trail.

A 3.2 km trail is open from The Forks to Churchill Drive, on the Red River but the Assiniboine River remains snow covered. Paul Jordan, chief operating officer for The Forks, says that last year’s ice conditions were not ideal on the Assiniboine River either.

“There is no trail on the Assiniboine this year and no plans to groom unless it really freezes; it didn’t freeze last year. Right now, there is open water under the Donald bridge and under the Osborne bridge,” says Jordan.

Jordan is hoping for some cooler weather.

“When it gets warm, people skate on the ice and destroy it, and we can’t get on to fix it; it’s too warm to get the Zamboni out.”

For when the temperature drops, there are 11 warming huts being brought to the river this week. Some huts are already out.

Three of the huts were chosen from an international competition, one from a University of Manitoba competition, and one from an invited guest. The rest of the huts are from last year.

“This year our invited guest is internationally renowned architect Frank Gehry. All architects come up and build their huts, then we put them on the trail,” says Jordan.

“We put out a call and got around 60 responses from all over the world.  The prize is a $3,500 honorarium and $2,500 towards travel to Winnipeg,” Jordan adds.

Retired landscape architect Ron Dixon used to do design work on the river trail when it started. Dixon is impressed with the designs of the warming huts this year, but his favourite is Gehry’s, made from ice.

“The way he chiseled the ice and set it up with the timber is really impressive. He is known all over the world, so the design was bound to be amazing.”

Last year, the warming huts didn’t get on the river until February 12. On February 14, the ice was so bad the trail was closed and didn’t reopen until February 17.

If conditions on the ice are not ideal, there is always the 1.2 km of skating trails on land, or the Olympic-sized skating rink. Something new to the river trail is the Winter Garden, a forest set up on the skating trail.

Warming huts came off the river last year on March 10 and the trail was closed the next day.