If the festival wants to continue with dragon boats on ice, it'll have to pivot, Martin said. "This is a new world. It's not these deep colds we used to get.

The 2025 edition of the festival, promoted as the world’s largest ice dragon boat event, had been scheduled to begin on Jan. 31.

The Ottawa Ice Dragon Boat Festival took place Saturday, Feb. 9, 2019, on Dow’s Lake, part of the Winterlude festivities. Photo by Ashley Fraser / Postmedia ...