Having conquered her fear of Bones, the crocodile mascot, roaming the parking lot of The Exploration Place, it was time for four-year-old Julianna Caron to venture outside the walls of the museum to try another activity.
She had lots of choices at the TakeOnPG festivities -- snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, geocaching, the P.G. Library's storytime, candle dipping, snow painting, ice fishing, and another visit with the adorable baby pygmy goat at the Pumpkin Patch petting zoo.
And just in case Julianna or her three-year-old sister got hungry, there were free hot dogs and table-full of free squares of chocolate at the Tourism Prince George booth.
"This is fantastic," said the girls' mom, Pat Caron. "It lets you know what's available. I didn't know you could rent snowshoes at Stride and Glide, and here you can try them out without a fee."
Julianna and her sister had fun turning an ordinary patch of snow into a rainbow of colours, all without having to worry about making a mess.
There's a lot to do here in the city, winter and summer, you just have to find out where the activities are," said Pat. "I wanted to try cross-country skiing in the park. I saw this on Facebook. It's a great idea -- TakeOnPG has done a really good job."
The focus of event at Fort George Park was to gather people to promote Tourism PG's new website, takeonpg.com. Aiden Kelly and his staff at Tourism Prince George have spent months fine-tuning their newest tool to show people the kinds of activities available in the city and have developed a list of 365 suggestions featured on the website.
The site has testimonials from people in the community to highlight their favourite activities and a "featured take" section that changes with every month, picking out fun things to do in the community.
Feedback from the crowd Saturday was enthusiastic and Kelly, Tourism PG's chief executive officer, is hoping people will spread the word about the new site and use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Trip Advisor to display their "take on PG," using photos and blog posts that will help attract out-of-town tourists.
"It gives us an appreciation for the assets we have living in Prince George and it will open people's eyes to new activities," said Kelly. "It encourages people to take pride in where we live and they will tell others about what they are doing."
Sean Simmons was on hand to share his knowledge of ice fishing on the frozen lakes that surround the city -- Eeena, Ness, Vivian, Tabor, Ferguson and Shane -- and passed out his Anglers Atlas guides to fishing that show people where to go to drop their lines.
"It isn't quite as popular here as it is in Alberta but on any one of those lakes you'll see a dozen people ice fishing every day," said Simmons. "This is a great way to get the word out about local activities that get people active in midwinter. We can be the ambassadors to visitors who don't know about what Prince George has to offer."
The geocache booth got the attention of nine-year-old Laura Siemens and her mom Irene. Laura has tried it before with girl guides and was anxious to find some of the treasures hidden by Darryl Triebner, a fourth-year UNBC outdoor recreation/tourism management student.
"It's a nice way to take walks with the kids," said Irene Siemens.
"We just get so busy with work and our daily lives we forget there are a lot of activities here we can enjoy and something like this brings it to everybody."
Triebner says there at least 40 registered geocache sites on the Greenway Trail, which connects UNBC with Otway Nordic Centre and most city parks also have them. He's hoping more people will enter their postal codes the website geocaching.com to find more place to go.
"It engages people to use technology that will get them outdoors and that's so important for kids, to get them out and moving," Triebner said.
Pat Maher showed up with his wife and young family and was enjoying the free activities on display. He's hoping the TakeOnPG event will grow into something much larger, an annual happening that will make the city a winter destination for tourists.
"In Prince George I would love to see a winter festival that combines all our great events -- Iceman plus Mardi Gras plus the Film Festival plus Coldsnap [folk festival], so all of them are combined," said Maher.
"We have a lot great singular events but it's difficult to try to make four of them happen. Let's make one massive one happen that attracts the sport guys, the culture folks, and the general yahoos that just want to have a good time in the winter. Everybody wins and if we do that for 2104, before the Canada Winter Games, it will just make people want to come to Prince George."
