On the first bitterly cold night of October, a group of women are warming their hands by a bubbling cauldron in Coldwater, Ont. They’re talking about witches. More specifically, they’re talking about why thousands flock to the Coldwater Witches Walk every year.
“There are a lot of women here who are being who they want to be for one night,” says Jodi Derrick, a local resident and Witches Walk devotee. Derrick came to the event on the evening of Oct. 16 with her friend, Christine Nicholls, and Christine’s sister, April Brown. The three women shared drinks and laughs at her house before donning their witches hats and heading downtown.
Coldwater has just over 1,100 residents, but this sleepy village attracts thousands of visitors every year through its cosplay events – including a steampunk festival, a fairy festival and the Witches Walk, which started in 2008 and has since exploded in popularity. Witches Walk attendees take part in costume contests, browse witchy wares from artisans and brave the haunted house that’s set up in Coldwater’s historic mill.
The crowds that take over the town are mostly women, who say they feel free to look and act how they want at the event: ugly, scary, striking, powerful, boisterous and loud. They can stalk through the shadows at night, while also feeling safe to be out in the dark.
But the cackles and pointed hats aren’t just for cisgender women. As one attendee pointed out, the event is for anyone who feels like they belong outside of traditional societal expectations, those who might have been called a witch or something similar, in a different time.
“They used to burn women at the stake because they labelled them as witches – but they were just different. They just didn’t conform to the norm,” says Brown, a former nurse who cracks jokes about her prosthetic leg.
“As times have moved on, we’ve progressed. We can be who we want to be. We don’t have to conform to someone else’s idea of who a woman is.”