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![\"MIKE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4444178_web1_RWBBalletinthePark_MikeSudoma_July232025-31.jpg\")
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MIKE SUDOMA \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n
Last year, wildfire smoke hung over the city during the Royal Winnipeg Ballet\u2019s Ballet in the Park series. This year, the entire event was cancelled because of heat.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t feel great. I do not begrudge cancellations \u2014 they are absolutely the correct call for the health and safety of performers and patrons \u2014 but I can\u2019t be the only one feeling some existential dread about our summers, and the things that make them special, in the face of a changing climate.<\/p>\n
After all, this isn\u2019t just a 2026 trend. In July 2025, the final night of Ballet in the Park was cancelled for heat. Rainbow Stage, meanwhile, had to cancel a matinee of Rock of Ages because of wildfire smoke. Shakespeare in the Ruins was forced to cancel several performances, seven of which were directly related to weather or smoke.<\/p>\n
These annual vacations to the Devil\u2019s Armpit are getting old, even though I know I\u2019m not supposed to say that. <\/p>\n
When you live in a winter city whose core tenets of civic identity include fighting for supremacy on whose winter is the hardest, fighting over windchill vs. temperature and generally being insufferable to Torontonians online whenever they have to deal with snow, you are practically contractually obligated to love summer \u2014 or at least not complain about summer because \u201cwait until it\u2019s -30 C!\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t threaten me with a good time.<\/p>\n
The thing is, I do love summer, and I love summer in the city. I love how animated it becomes, how much there is to do, how the light lingers on the horizon for so long. I love our festivals, our celebrations and the way we congregate outdoors.<\/p>\n
But increasingly I\u2019m finding myself forced inside by ever-more inclement weather, a phrase usually reserved for cold months. Scorching temps, acrid forest fire smoke, humidity I can only describe as enraging \u2014 all of this has put a damper on the season we wait all winter for.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve already had to schedule my dog walks for very early in the morning and later in the evening; I think I\u2019ve sat on my deck once this summer because of the oppressive heat.<\/p>\n
The same was true last summer, which, you may recall, was a record-breaking one for wildfire smoke. There were 189 smoke hours logged last July, surpassing the previous record-holding 163 smoke hours recorded in August 1961. The sky burned orange, and the air was often too toxic to breathe.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s already a scarcity about summer. Now those perfect days \u2014 22 C, light breeze, blue sky with passing puff-ball clouds, no I will not accept arguments to the contrary \u2014 are in very short supply.<\/p>\n
Now, you could say Winnipeg\u2019s weather has always been marked by extremes. This is an area of the world that sees a 60-degree temperature swing between winter and summer, and we are no stranger to storms and floods and the rest.<\/p>\n
But the extremes are being pushed to further extremes by climate change. Winnipeg broke temperature records in July, but we also broke some in May. Environment and Climate Change Canada predicted in January that 2026 will likely be among the hottest years on record, comparable to 2023 and 2025. The warmest year ever observed was 2024. <\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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I hope I don\u2019t need to spell it out but I will: those are the last four years.<\/p>\n
I worry what the prolonged punishing heat waves and choking wildfires and more frequent and intense storms mean for our outdoor events and festivals, especially since we\u2019ve already experienced the wholesale loss of these cultural cornerstones in 2020. The pandemic showed us what a summer of silence looks like.<\/p>\n
Play this out for the next 50 years. Will our summer festivals have to move to different pages of the calendar? Will they all move indoors? Will February become Festival Month, anchored by Festival du Voyageur? Or will it be too unseasonably warm for that festival, too?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have the answers. But it does make me want to attend everything I can, for as long as I can.<\/p>\n
jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com<\/p>\n
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Jen Zoratti Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT<\/a>. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2013 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
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