COLD LAKE – Cold Lake was the place to be from Aug. 21–24 as Extreme Mudfest roared back to the Cold Lake Ag Society grounds with four days of bull riding, mud racing, live music, and community spirit.
Billie Jo Aasen, producer of Mudfest, said, “Mudfest is everything that celebrates being a small-town Canadian. It's mud, music, family, bull riding, crazy. We work hard, we play hard, and we come together at Mudfest.”
This year marked the 12th edition of Mudfest, which first started in Bonnyville through a collaboration with Clayton Bellamy of the Roadhammers. Aasen explained that the festival has since grown into a Lakeland tradition.
The action kicked off Thursday night with Extreme Bull Riding, followed by a jam-packed schedule of tough trucks, mud drags, quad racing, J-Hook showdowns, bounty hole throwdowns, and mega truck madness. Each night ended with live music, from Jade Eagleson to BCDC, Wide Mouth Mason, and Bif Naked, with afterhours parties running until the early morning.
Saturday featured the Mud Run for Charity, where participants flipped tires and slogged through the mud to raise money, while kids enjoyed their own free activities in the Kids Zone. Sunday was family day, wrapping the weekend with more racing and a “blow up party.”
Aasen said the festival’s impact stretches beyond the track and stage.
“Every hotel is sold out. Their restaurants are packed . . . our induced impact [from a few years ago] I believe was $1.8 million over the weekend.”
She noted that more than 70 per cent of attendees travel from outside a 50-kilometre radius, including visitors from across Canada and the U.S.
The festival also gives back locally, supporting food banks at Christmas and helping teachers with art supplies.
“We're here because of the arts so you can't really cut it,” Aasen said.
Mudfest has also become a generational event.
“We've had kids that were coming when they were 12 years old and now, they're in the nightclub . . . We've had people meet here and get married and have babies and now we know they're kids.”
For Aasen, the heart of Mudfest is about connection.
“I think motorsports, music, it all brings culture together, right? We're meant to connect in person. We're supposed to get off of our phones and out into nature, and that's what we do. We get off our phones into mud.”
“It's part of who we are. I feel like Mudfest raised me,” Aasen said, adding, “Thank you to the community. We couldn't do it without all the support from all the sponsors to volunteers to the AG society it's been great.”
