The warm weather drew huge crowds to Shipyards Park over the weekend as Yukoners took in the annual Sourdough Rendezvous festival.

“We had a phenomenal year,” David Blotter, the festival’s executive director, said in an interview this morning of the 2017 edition of Rendezvous.

Shipyards Park serves as the site for the major part of festival. Events kicked off there Friday and continued through to Sunday afternoon, with a range of other Rendezvous events also being held around town.

With temperatures ranging between -1.9 C to -14.4 C over the weekend, it appeared many were anxious to enjoy the good weather and take in the events.

Some – such as sled-dog rides that had been planned for kids – were cancelled due to a lack of snow, but there remained a wide variety of other activities and events to take in.

Many kids seemed to spend much of the weekend sliding down the park’s hill when they weren’t climbing a large mound of snow set up in the park. They took in the “roaring” excitement of the KidsFest tent or watched one of the many competitions held in the park that are Rendezvous traditions.

While Rendezvous officials are still working on an estimate of the total numbers taking in festival events, Blottner said it was clear that record numbers came out to compete in the Flour Packing contest.

Brent Eby took the men’s category in the Flour Packing contest carrying a weight of 743 lbs. while Hannah Warrington took the women’s category, toting 543 lbs.

The Colour Wars on Sunday afternoon drew a crowd of 200, the largest Blottner has seen to that event.

“Everyone was just excited to get out and involved,” Blottner said.

Even as some of the temporary weekend fixtures were being brought down late Sunday afternoon, festival-goers continued to make use of the hill for sliding.

They wandered through the snow carvings that were created for the festival’s International snow carving competition. Those included a tribute piece in memory of Mike Lane, a popular local snow carver who died in January.

Spectators also took in the wrap-up parade as it made its way through the park.

Many also took in shows by a variety of performers in the main tent, whether it was the can-can dancers, snowshoe shufflers, singer Gillian Campbell, children’s performer Norman Foote and many more.

The airport area was also a popular spot to be over the weekend to take in the planes in town for the festival’s air show.

Some opted to go the extra step and choose the helicopter rides that were being offered for $65.

The excitement didn’t stop until well into the night, with Saturday night seeing the coronation of this year’s Rendezvous Queen. Miss MacPherson Rentals, Telek Rogan, was declared the 2017 Queen.

A new addition to the Rendezvous festival saw this year’s Queen officially knight the Sourdough Sam declared this year’s “primo Yukon male” at the coronation. Harold Risby was declared the 2017 Sourdough Sam.

Festival-goers who weren’t able to get tickets to the coronation still got to take in the Rendezvous celebration in the park.

Fire dancers performed for the crowd before the 8:30 p.m. fireworks wowed people gathered in the park and further out around the downtown. Those who turned their radio dials to CKRW were treated to a soundtrack that accompanied the display in the sky.

Blottner noted that the festival couldn’t go ahead without the 300 volunteers and more than 156 sponsors that support it.

Over the next week, Rendezvous officials will work to finish the clean-up from this year’s festival.

In the coming month, they will look at this year’s event and how the 2018 festival can be made that much better with planning for next year’s event moving into full swing later in March and early April.