In Canada you don’t stay inside just because the thermometer plummets and snow falls. We do winter right, so join us! Commune with your inner snowman, and get outside to celebrate winter at festivals: there’s one in most major cities across Canada, usually held as a frozen Mardi Gras in February. Here’s a sampling:

• Quebeckers have so much fun in winter, you’d hardly notice the weather. The world’s largest winter festival, Carnaval de Québec, takes over historic Old Québec City, QC, and includes voyageur–style canoe races across the St. Lawrence River, night parades, a sugar shack, plus downhill skating and snow rafting.
   
•  MONTRÉAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival is a 10-day celebration of light, food and culture (in Quebec, again). Dine around the city on special menus. Then head outside, grab a mug of hot chocolate, cozy up to a downtown bonfire and watch fireworks as you stomp your feet to lively French-Canadian music.
   
• Strap on skates and glide along one of the world’s largest skating rinks, the Rideau Canal, through downtown Ottawa, ON, during Winterlude. Check out the ice sculptures.
   
• All of (Ontario’s) Niagara—the Falls ‘n all—is illuminated in rainbow colours during the Winter Festival of Lights.
   
• Canada’s Arctic winter epicentre, Iqaluit, NU, indulges in sub-zero merry-making during Toonik Tyme with iglu-building, snowmobile races and traditional Inuit feasting celebrating the return of the sun and springtime each April.
   
• The area surrounding Banff and Lake Louise, AB, seems to come alive in the winter season, which is why locals welcome the chill in the air at the WinterStart Festival.
   
• Held in Winnipeg, MB’s Saint-Boniface French Quarter, Festival du Voyageur celebrates the fur-trade era and French-Canadian heritage with a beard-growing contest, torchlight walk and Cajun Nights.
   
• Whitehorse’s Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous is an old-time fest featuring funky flour-packing contests, chainsaw chucks, one-dog pulls, “Swede saw” and log-splitting plus axe-throwing competitions.
   
• Dogsled derbies, pancake breakfasts and fiddle dances are some of the northern fun at Yellowknife, NWT’s Caribou Carnival.
   
• Whistler’s TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival (British Columbia) combines winter sports with Canada’s largest outdoor concert series and art events like film screenings, photography showdowns and live painting.