Behind the lights: How Saskatoon’s Enchanted Forest comes to life

By September, most of Saskatoon is just settling back into routine. School lunches are packed again, leaves are starting to yellow and the air has a hint of winter in it, but for most of us it’s far too early to think about Christmas.

Not for Gerald Sorokan.

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By the middle of the month, while most people are trading their sandals for sweaters, Sorokan is already hard at work at the Saskatoon Forestry Farm Park & Zoo, surrounded by cables, steel frames and extension cords.

Massive steel frames are used in the majority of the displays at the BHP Enchanted Forest. Due to the high cost of steel this year, very few additional displays have been added. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Cranes rise between the trees, hoisting the first pieces of what will become the BHP Enchanted Forest, Saskatoon’s long-running winter spectacle of light. For Sorokan, who manages the massive drive-through display, this is when the magic begins. Not with the glow of the lights, but with the work that builds them.

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Now in its 27th year, the Enchanted Forest has become a true Saskatoon tradition. Each winter, more than 80,000 visitors take the slow, winding route through more than two and a half kilometres of glowing displays.

Sorokan said that roughly 20 years ago, the Saskatoon Zoo Foundation and Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation had power structurally installed in the Forestry Farm park. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

The forest is powered almost entirely by volunteer spirit, community support and a small, tireless staff of 20 people. Almost.

Every glowing snowflake and waving Santa has to plug in somewhere, and behind all that magic is a maze of cords and outlets most visitors never notice.

“Twenty years ago, the Zoo Foundation and the City Hospital Foundation spent a lot of money putting a power infrastructure into the park,” Sorokan explained.

“We have power everywhere. The power is structurally put in the park, and our cording is minimal. Well, I shouldn’t say minimal,” he said with a grin. “It’s still a lot of cords, but it’s well hidden. There’s probably five miles, six miles of cords.”

It takes hours for the team just to set up the steel frame of the massive Noah’s Ark display, and that’s before adding the lights. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Those cords begin snaking through the park in mid-September, when setup starts in earnest. The work moves slowly, one display at a time, as cranes and lifts position the heavy steel frames and crews test each strand of bulbs.

When it’s mild, the days are long and productive, but when the cold settles in, the pace grinds to a halt. They can’t touch the trees when it drops below -10 C, in order to avoid damaging the branches. At -20 C, all outdoor work stops.

Sorokan said installing tens of thousands of lights on giant trees around the park is the most delicate part of the job. Every bulb has to be placed just right, with every wire tucked neatly out of sight.

“Wrapping those trees is kind of time consuming,” he said. “We try and space the lights three inches apart. Taking down is easier, because you don’t have to be as careful.”

Thousands of lights are placed with precision on four large fir trees in the park. If the temperature drops below -10 C, they wait for a warmer day in an attempt to reduce damage to the branches. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Some of the displays are straightforward, while others are intricate puzzles of light and motion.

“The rope lighting on a drummer, one drummer, there’s 130 feet of cording on each one,” Sorokan said, motioning toward a set of 12 drummers keeping time.

Even after nearly three decades, the Enchanted Forest continues to evolve, with new lights appearing each year and familiar displays sometimes finding a new home among the trees.

Sorokan is only in his third year managing it, and he’s still feeling out how much to change.

“Me being new, the last two years I’ve kind of left them in the same areas,” he said, gesturing toward familiar displays along the route.

“But when we expanded the route and we went past the administration building, I’ve added some images in there. We have a new one there, it’s called Santa’s Runway. And it’s two rows of lights, 48 poles, six feet high, that move. The controller moves the lights back and forth. It looks like a runway.”

The addition of the Santa’s Runway display is one of the few changes Sorokan has made to the route since taking over as manager for the Enchanted Forest. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

While Sorokan has ideas for bigger displays in the future, for now they’re on hold. Not just because of tradition, but because of the price tags as well.

“This year, steel prices were ridiculous,” he lamented. “They could only guarantee me a price for 24 hours!”

Even as the steel frames and rope lights take shape among the trees, the work is never truly done.

Sorokan drives the route twice every day during the event — once in the morning and once in the evening — with eyes peeled for burnt-out bulbs, loose wires or anything else that might break the spell.

“We’re out there, always kind of tweaking it. If we see it, we’re replacing the string or we’re repairing. We have enough that we can take the old one off, put a new one on, and repair that one,” he explained.

Making the switch to LED lights has saved the Enchanted Forest thousands on their yearly electrical expenses. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Repairs are a balance of efficiency and care.

“We don’t spend too much time on repairing. If it takes more than half an hour, it’s not cost efficient,” Sorokan added.

Despite the hours spent monitoring and adjusting the forest, Sorokan said he still plans to step out into it as a visitor. On walk-through night — the first night the forest is open to the public — he blends in with the crowd.

“I just like to kind of listen to see what everybody has to say about it. I’m undercover,” he said with a smile. “I don’t tell anyone who I am. I ask questions. Whatever they say, I take constructively.”

Sorokan said between five and six miles of extension cords are used to power the forest. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Considering Sorokan is an expert in Christmas lights, you might expect his own house to rival the Enchanted Forest, but you’d be wrong.

“I let my wife decorate,” he laughed. “She wants me to put lights on the outside of the house, but I’m so busy! The outside of my house looks pretty sad, so I’m gonna have to pick it up a notch next year.”

After months of building magic for tens of thousands of visitors to the Enchanted Forest, Sorokan said his own front yard will just have to wait.

This is Gerald Sorokan’s third year as the manager of Saskatoon’s BHP Enchanted Forest. He and a team of 20 staff begin setting up the drive-through Christmas light show in September. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)