It’s not everyday you see drag queens and snowboarders in one place, but the Rainbow Ski Weekend at Blue Mountain brought them together.
Organizer Andrew Siegwart, president of the Blue Mountain Village Association, said LGBTQ events had been held a few years ago, but this is the first Rainbow Weekend and he plans to make it an annual event.
“We had a great advance response with bloggers promoting it to the LGBTQ community. We’ve had a lot of people come here specifically for the event to take advantage of the great skiing and all the programming... and we want to keep it growing.
While there are a lot of Pride events held in the summer, there are not many in the winter, Siegwart added.
“We are doing it a bit differently. The LGBTQ community is maturing. We have children now and families and so you want to go to a place and enjoy yourself but you want to bring your kids. It’s about having some family fun.”
The event featured a colour smash slalom ski in front of the Village, dancing and drag queen performances in the Village Square in the afternoon, an apés ski party, an early evening pool party and late evening, adults only, DJ and drag queen party.
Britt Bates, of Gravenhurst, and her girlfriends came to Blue Mountain for the weekend and were happy to find out about the Rainbow ski events.
“I think it’s a blast. There is so much going on, so you know it’s going to be a great time,” she said.
