The temperature pushed toward 30C at Yellowknife’s Folk on the Rocks music festival on Saturday as the smoke largely held off – and thousands of people partied at five stages.
Virtually everyone we surveyed on the festival grounds had the heat on their mind. For some veterans of cooler Folks, Saturday verged on being a little hot to handle.
The 2026 edition was headlined by The OBGMs, Cadence Weapon and Drives The Common Man on Saturday night with Aysanabee, Mae Martin and Great Lake Swimmers to follow on Sunday.
You could be forgiven for confusing smoke with dust on Saturday. With smoke hanging high in the sky, the sun set in a red haze. But on the ground, the only real breathing difficulties came from mosh pits kicking up sand.
“It’s hot up here. It’s a dry heat,” said Janky Bungag, a Vancouver bluegrass and country musician after finishing a Cabin Radio Lakefront Stage set.
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“My whole band’s first time here, and it’s great. We got in yesterday and we wandered the town. We went to some lakes. One was a little mosquito heavy, so we went to another one.”
“It’s just such a beautiful setting for a festival,” said Fontine, from Manitoba, who arrived at Folk having recently released their first full-length album, Good Buddy.
“All the trees and the water is just gorgeous. We’re about to go take a swim, so I’m excited to go do that.”
Sunday’s forecast is for a smokier day, with plumes drifting in from fires northwest and northeast of Yellowknife.
Here are our favourite shots from Saturday.
