Add These Fun Winter & Spring Festivals to Your Alaska Itinerary
Winter in Alaska is a magical time thanks to sparkling blankets of snow, endless winter recreation opportunities, cozy evenings, and the dazzling northern lights. It’s also a time where Alaskans come together to celebrate culture and unique Alaska traditions at festivals and events. If you’re visiting Alaska during the winter and spring months, make sure to take part in some of Alaska’s most memorable and fun festivals and events:
December Events
Alaska Native Heritage Center Holiday Bazaar
Early December, Anchorage
Get a head start on your holiday shopping and support local Alaska Native artists at the Alaska Native Heritage Center Holiday Bazaar. This three-day craft fair takes place during early December and features beautiful, hand-crafted art by over 60 Alaska Native artists.
Winter Solstice Festivals
December 21, Anchorage and Fairbanks
Alaskans are serious about celebrating Solstice – the longest and shortest days of the year. While big celebrations happen throughout the state to celebrate summer solstice and Alaska’s midnight sun on June 21, we also honor the shortest day of the year on winter solstice, December 21. Along with the darkness of winter solstice comes the knowledge that the days will start getting longer – and that’s something to celebrate! Fairbanks hosts a weeklong Winter Solstice Festival with a holiday bazaar, lighted tree walk, downtown scavenger hunt, and fireworks. In Anchorage, you can celebrate the shortest day of the year at a family-friendly festival complete with ice skating, horse-drawn carriage rides, dog sled rides, and more.
New Year’s Eve Celebrations
December 31, Anchorage and Girdwood
Ring in the New Year Alaska style! Two of the largest New Year’s Eve celebrations take place in Southcentral Alaska. Alaska’s largest city hosts a fun evening of events in downtown Anchorage including live music, food trucks, and one of the best fireworks displays in the state. Just south of Anchorage, the mountain town of Girdwood hosts a festive New Year’s Eve Torchlight Parade & Fireworks. Watch as a parade of hundreds of skiers carrying torches zigzag down the darkened slope above the Alyeska Resort Daylodge, finishing with an amazing fireworks display from the mountain.
January Events
Anchorage Folk Festival
Late January to early February, Anchorage
Come in from the cold for the 10-day Anchorage Folk Festival featuring both in-state and out-of-state musicians. Performances take place at venues throughout town, making for a fun community-wide event. Free workshops are also held throughout the festival for you to learn some new musical skills or hone your craft.
February Events
Alaska Craft Brew & Barley Wine Festival
Early February, Anchorage
Celebrate Alaska’s booming brewery scene at the three-day Alaska Craft Brew & Barley Wine Festival in Anchorage. This is the largest beer festival of the state, where you can sample brews from over 60 local breweries, enjoy some good food, and listen to evening band performances.
World Ice Art Championships
Mid-February to end of March, Fairbanks
Talented ice sculptors from around the world travel to Fairbanks to show off their carving skills at the World Ice Art Championships, one of the largest ice sculpting competitions in the world. Competitors carve intricate and beautiful sculptures from massive blocks of clear ice in various competition categories over several days. Visitors can enjoy strolling through the completed sculptures, illuminated by colorful lights, and play in the interactive Winter Playground made entirely of ice.
Festival of Native Arts
Late February to early March, Fairbanks
The Festival of Native Arts brings together Indigenous dancers, musicians, and artists from Alaska and beyond for a multi-day celebration of Alaska Native and Indigenous cultures. Held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, visitors can enjoy song and dance performances, along with an artist market where you can purchase authentic Alaska Native artwork.
Denali Winterfest
Late February, Denali National Park
The family-friendly Denai Winterfest takes place at various locations at the entrance to Denali National Park and the nearby community of Healy. Celebrate all things winter in Denali with a snow sculpture competition, demonstrations with the Denali canine rangers, winter games, a cross country ski race, guided snowshoeing, and more!
Fur Rendezvous
Late February to early March, Anchorage
One of Alaska’s largest and most unique winter festivals, Fur Rendezvous – also known as “Rondy” by locals – started in 1935 as a winter carnival that coincided with miners and fur trappers returning to the big city to sell their winter harvests. Today, this two week-long festival takes over downtown Anchorage, combining all things winter and wacky, from dog sledding competitions, a carnival, a parade, fireworks, an Alaska Native artist market, and a snow sculpture competition to the Frostbite Footrace, Snowshoe Softball Tournament, Running of the Reindeer, Outhouse Races, and so much more. Keeping with tradition, the event still features a fur auction and Miners and Trappers Ball. Rondy festivities lead right up to the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, held the first weekend of March.
March Events
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
Early to mid-March, Anchorage (Ceremonial Start); Willow to Nome (Race)
Alaska’s most iconic event, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race takes dog mushing teams on a 1,000-mile race from Willow to Nome. The event begins the first Saturday in March with a ceremonial start in Anchorage, where onlookers can cheer on the teams as they depart from downtown and cruise through trails in town. The official race starts the next day in Willow, with winning teams arriving in Nome a little over a week later. The race was founded in 1973 to preserve the legacy of dog mushing in Alaska, traveling along some of the Iditarod National Historical Trail - a historic winter thoroughfare for dog teams used during Alaska’s gold rush days along with segments of winter trails long used by Alaska Native Peoples. The easiest way to catch the Iditarod is at the ceremonial start in Anchorage, but visitors can also catch the race at the official start in Willow, the finish line in Nome, and at remote checkpoints along the way.
April Events
Alaska Folk Festival
Early April, Juneau
The Alaska Folk Festival is a week-long musical celebration in Alaska’s capital city. Each night of this free festival, an exciting lineup of musicians performs onstage in 15-minute sets. The festival also features music workshops, musician jam sessions, dances, and guest artist concerts.
Spring Carnival & Slush Cup
Late April, Girdwood
This wild and fun weekend festival takes place near the end of ski season at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood. The main event is Slush Cup, where skiers and boarders in costume bomb down the mountain in hopes of gaining enough speed to skim across a pool of water at the base of the mountain. Will they make it, or will they plunge head-first into the freezing waters? Join the fun as an onlooker, or enter the costume contest the day before for your chance to be selected as one of the 50 competitors. Other weekend events include live music, a tug-of-war (where the losing team ends up in the pool), Dummy Downhill, and more.
Winter Races
For active visitors wanting to be part of the action, Alaska hosts a variety of winter races including skiing, fat tire biking, and multi-sport races that bring a festival atmosphere to winter recreation. Some of the most popular winter races are the Tri Flake Winter Triathlon in Anchorage (run/bike/ski triathlon), the Tour of Anchorage (cross country ski and fat tire bike), and Oosik Classic in Talkeetna (cross country ski). Several other events attract serious endurance athletes from around the world to participate in challenging winter running, biking, and ski races including the Iditarod Trail Invitational and the Susitna 100. Learn more about these races and other year-round races in Alaska.
Spring Birding Festivals
With the arrival of spring comes the return of migrating species to Alaska – including a wide array of migratory birds. Spring birding festivals throughout the state celebrate the return of hundreds of species of birds to Alaska’s shorelines, forests, and wetlands. If you’re interested in birding and would like to visit Alaska in the spring, plan your trip around one of these birding festivals:
- Alaska Hummingbird Festival, early to late April, Ketchikan
- Stikine River Birding Festival, late April, Wrangell
- Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival, early May, Cordova
- Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, early to mid-May, Homer
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