The World’s Largest Snowball Fight Was Prairie Canadiana at Its Most Dangerous

Saskatoon's Victoria Park isn't typically the kind of place to draw a massive crowd. It's a nondescript location wedged between an inner-city skatepark and a Chinese monument. But on this particular afternoon, the Riversdale neighbourhood is flooded with white middle class parka-clad families ploughing through the snow near the riverbank to gather together and try to break the Guinness world record for biggest snowball fight.

Riversdale, traditionally one of Saskatoon's poorest neighbourhoods, is currently the scene of a contentious case of gentrification. So an event like this is regrettably appropriate here; more white non-residents sweeping through to fund and promote a cause that does little in return for the community. Then again, snowballs are fun.

I walk towards the mass of people, past a row of radio station tents, already resisting the urge to fire a snowball at a radio-man summoning the crowd over to enter the draw for Hedley tickets. There are newspaper reporters and TV crews wedging their cameras and microphones into the crowd surrounding Rick Mercer, who is shooting a segment for his geriatric TV show.

Among the crowd I immediately spot a few members from "Team Canada," the snowball crew going to Japan for Yukigassen—an international snowball fight competition. They're easy to locate by their red and white onesies and their almost unvaried long hair and hipster moustaches (think of the Fubar dudes except with €130 boots and impressive investment portfolios). The dudebros are half zipped, showing of ample chest hair and snapping soon-to-be-deleted photos with those who don't have the patience to wait in the Rick Mercer selfie line.

I have to admit, it's an impressive turnout, particularly for such an utterly meaningless event. Kids in ski masks and hockey helmets form large piles of iceballs. There are women in heeled boots and feather scarves, white haired couples who probably don't have any more teeth to lose, neo-hippies in their fake-thrift puffing on a joint beside a family with matching Canada Goose jackets, and toddlers throwing mitten-fulls of iced powder in the air that hang like crystals.

The snow is hard and grainy from the recent melt-freeze-repeat cycle—trying to pack the stuff is impossible. But the wait is getting long and people are making due, kicking chunks of the packed snow underfoot, or removing armfuls from the various piles of snow the city had dumped for the occasion. Thousands of people armed with ice chunks. There's no way this can go wrong.

I head to the stage where, basking in the general vicinity of the perma-smiling Mercer, I find Don Atchison—Saskatoon's longest running mayor, despite a long history of questionable competence. He's clutching a snowball in one mitt, and the parka of what I assume is his granddaughter in the other.

"You're in on the fight, Mr. Mayor?" I ask.

He grins and lifts his snow fist to me, "Oh yeah. All ready."

"So no lawsuits if you get beamed?"

"No no!" Atchison snorts.

"Well in that case, when this starts, I'm gunning right for you."

He gives a nervous laugh before he slowly starts to turn his back to me.

The moment is finally approaching, and snowball championship team co-captain Nathan Thoen attempts to bellow his on-stage announcement. People start to whizz chunks of snow by his head, possibly in response to seeing his camera-hungry mug on local TV one too many times. He says something about already having enough people, needing to sustain 60 seconds of snowballing, and invites Mercer from the stage down to one of the snow mounds in the middle of the mob.

The countdown begins, but before we hit one, snow-bullets begin to fly. It's vicious. Mercer, propped on the snow pile, is being pelted ruthlessly with a sideways deluge of snow and ice. It's less of a snowball fight and more of a mildly humane stoning. Snowballs by the thousands are being launched arbitrarily, and rain down on the tightly packed crowd. A few seconds into the assault and there's already crying. A woman attempts to tell the crowd of thousands to "stop."

I get dinged smartly in the back of the head. Probably from Atch. I take a guarded peek around. In equal measure there's small children lofting snow crumbs at each other and jacked d-bags pitching ice deep into the crowd. I watch a blonde man who has a cache of readymade snowballs, flinging them at nostril-level directly into a crowd of every-aged people.

Mercer's TV face has been hit. He grabs the mic and screams for a ceasefire. The crowd half complies, several snowballs still fly through the air towards his battered face. Someone howls into the mic that "We did it!," eliciting triumphant screams from the crowd. The mood shifts to full-blown party mode, the teamsters dancing on the stage while a random hijacks the mic to tell the world how "awesome" he feels. The infectious sense of hyper-accomplishment punctured only by wails of the ice-targeted children.

I go off to hunt for evidence of more carnage, the worst being a teenage girl with a scary looking gash around her eye. The girl's mother is dressing down one the teamsters, taking the snowball hit as a personal attack. I watch him as he tries to console the young girl.

The self-congratulatory celebration of all things whiteness continues as I make my way from the park. The turnout and enthusiasm it created is baffling. I guess the masses who congregated imply that we want to be part of something significant; our collective names in an annual book often relegated to the clearance aisle of Costco.

But then I think, Screw it, maybe I should embrace this stunning accomplishment. Who knows what tides of positivity will wash over the community, the city, the whole fucking country. I turn back around, my jingoistic instincts now in full command. I crack a brew, take a selfie, and unzip my jacket as I dance to the garbled noises of the DJ, expose my chest hair and nipples to old man winter, and rejoice that we broke the fucking record.