Wisconsin Winter Festivals

The Cabin

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Campfire Conversation:

Ana, Eric, and Jake give their takes on some fun winter festivals that, at this point in mid-January, are still on the horizon. Some are coming up this weekend, including Waukesha’s annual Jan-Boree Festival, a city-wide brouhaha of winter activities that span 10 entire days! Up in Superior, the Lake Superior Ice Festival offers family fun the last weekend of January. Both of these fests feature activities like ice carving, winter disc golf, sledding, bonfires, and more. The Superior festival adds ice racing, a kubb tournament, and a market and craft fair. The end of January sees the start of Lake Geneva Winterfest, a long weekend celebration that embraces rides on and above Geneva Lake, ice sculptures throughout downtown, family friendly (and grown-up) activities of all kinds, and the crowning event: the U.S. National Snow Sculpting Championships, welcoming the best snow sculptor teams from around the country.
February is filled with festivals, including Madison’s Winter Carnival with events at the UW campus both on and off the ice; the unique Scandihoovian Festival in Mt. Horeb embraces the Scandinavian way to enjoy winter, with social activities and fun with turkey bowling, fiddling, fat tire biking, and even a spelling bee. The middle weekend of February, the 15th-17th, is packed with events all over including the Northwoods Blizzard Blast centered in Conover; from the market to snowshoe baseball to outdoor recliner races on the ice plus sleigh rides, ice bowling, hockey, archery, snowshoeing, even pin-the-nose-on-the-snowman, it truly is a blast! At the same time, you can hustle across Chequamegon Bay during Book Across the Bay, the annual over-ice trek between Ashland and Washburn on Lake Superior, with plenty of fun events before, during, and after. Over on the Door Peninsula, the Sturgeon Bay Fire and Ice Festival features luminary night hikes, snow and carvers of all experience levels in the downtown crafting masterpieces and whimsical creations, even free trolley rides. For more motorized excitement, check out the Manawa Snodeo. It features snowmobile racing, ice drags, even racing with mini-bikes and lawnmowers along with hot air balloons and pyrotechnics lighting things up!

They cover several craft beer festivals happening in February too, so you’re covered there as well. Plenty of festival fun awaits yet this winter, let this episode inspire you to check more out! Links to these fests are below:

Waukesha JanBoree (Jan 19-28): https://www.janboree.org/

Lake Superior Ice Festival: https://lakesuperioricefestival.com/

Lake Geneva Winterfest & The US National Snow Sculpting Competition: https://www.visitlakegeneva.com/event/winterfest-2024/12242/

Madison Winter Carnival: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/special-events/wintercarnival/

Scandihoovian Festival in Mt. Horeb: https://trollway.com/scandihoovian-winter-festival

Northwoods Blizzard Blast: https://northwoodsblizzardblast.com/

Book Across the Bay: https://www.batb.org/

Sturgeon Bay Fire & Ice Festival: https://sturgeonbay.net/special-events/fire-ice-festival/

Manawa Snodeo: https://www.manawasnodeo.org/

More festival and road trip fun can be found at https://www.statetrunktour.com/