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# McCall sets a ten-day Winter Carnival for 2027 and picks a Wild West theme
- URL: https://blog.dwightdavis.com/mccall-sets-a-ten-day-winter-carnival-for-2027-and-picks-a-wild-west-theme/
- Published: 2026-09-17T16:26:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-17T16:26:54.000Z
- Author: Dwight Davis

The McCall Area Chamber of Commerce announced this week that the 2027 Winter Carnival will run ten days, Thursday, January 28 through Saturday, February 6, under the theme "Sharlie's Wild West." Sharlie is the lake monster, for anyone new to Idaho. The Chamber says the theme points at McCall's mountain character and winter grit while leaving room for the town's independent, creative streak. Idaho News 6 has the announcement at [https://www.kivitv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/mccall/mccall-winter-carnival-2027-theme-announced-sharlies-wild-west](https://www.kivitv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/mccall/mccall-winter-carnival-2027-theme-announced-sharlies-wild-west?ref=blog.dwightdavis.com), and the dates are worth putting on the calendar now.

The schedule breaks into two weekends. The first opens with Carnival Eve events on Thursday the 28th, then the Children's Torchlight Parade on Friday the 29th, then snow sculptures, family activities, and Grand Bingo on Sunday the 31st. The second weekend is the big downtown one, with the Mardi Gras Parade and a lakeside fireworks show on Saturday, February 6.

One change stands out. The Chamber is doing a single fireworks show this year instead of one per weekend. Their stated reasons are that it keeps something special for the second Saturday and that locals had raised concerns about what fireworks do to Payette Lake, to pets, and to the quiet of a mountain town in winter. Chamber Director Shela Francis put it this way in the announcement: "This community has a strong sense of adventure, but also a strong sense of responsibility to each other and to this place."

Here is how I read it from down in Boise.

A big share of the people at Winter Carnival drove up Highway 55 to get there, a lot of them from the Treasure Valley, and for plenty of families it is the one winter trip to McCall they make all year. The drive is part of the event. You leave Eagle or Meridian in the dark, you follow the river up through the canyon, you find out somewhere around Cascade whether the road is what the forecast promised, and by the time you pull into town you have earned the hot chocolate.

Ten days changes the math on that trip. When everything is packed into one weekend, the whole valley shows up on the same Saturday, parking is a mess, and there is a line in front of every sculpture. Two weekends with a full week between them gives people a real choice. Go up the first weekend for the sculptures and the torchlight parade with the kids. Go the second weekend for the parade and the fireworks. Or take a Tuesday off and walk the sculptures with almost nobody around.

The single fireworks show actually sharpens that choice. It gives the second Saturday a clear reason to exist, while the first weekend keeps its quieter sculptures-and-bingo feel. I understand why some people would rather have two shows. But if I lived on the lake, I would probably feel the way the residents who spoke up feel, and I give the Chamber credit for listening to them and saying so in print.

Idaho News 6 has also reported before that Carnival helps McCall's economy even in a thin snow year. For the restaurants and shops up there, ten days of Ada County plates in the parking lots in the dead of winter matters.

I have not decided which weekend yet. If you have a strong opinion about first versus second, or a trick for the drive, I would like to hear it.