Winter Break Milwaukee is an event designed to coax people out of hibernation in the winter and into nature and into community.
Winter Break Milwaukee offers activities during deep winter that foster community connections, mental well-being, and outdoor enjoyment. We will back for 2026,
Thank you for joining us at the 2025 festival. The adventure has just started…
Ways to support the festival…
We aim to celebrate Milwaukee’s unique winter culture, support local business and creators, and promote sustainable winter tourism – while keeping the event free and accessible to everyone.
Event Sponsors
Imagine a Milwaukee where people enjoy all four seasons.
We need something to look forward to after the holidays have ended, but the grey skies have not.
Winter Break is a free outdoor event for all ages, experience levels, bodies, and genders. It promotes gentle outdoor recreation in an approachable way. This event goes on no matter the weather. In fact, the worse the weather gets, the better the event. If we have snow and ice, that just unlocks more activities!
Thank you to the stewards of these lands and waters that came before us. Milwaukee and Wisconsin is or has been home to people from the sovereign nations of:
Oma͞eqnomenew-ahkew (Menominee) | Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi) | Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Dakota/Lakota) | Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) | Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk) | Myaamia (Miami) | peewaareewa (Peoria) | Ojibwe (Chippewa) | Onyota'a:ka (Oneida) | Odawa (Ottawa) | Meskwaki (Fox) | Muh-he-ka-neew (Mohican) | oθaakiiwaki (Sauk) | and more.
Today, 7,000+ Milwaukeeans identify as Native, the largest concentration of Native people in Wisconsin. We recognize that the ancestors of the peoples of these nations preceded and survived European Colonialism, enduring racist and xenophobic policies aimed at cultural genocide and cultural erasure, like re-education at boarding schools, destruction of sacred sites, land seizures, and forced relocation. We acknowledge this traumatic history, the effects of which can still be seen today in the form of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, adverse health outcomes for native peoples, and the cycle of intergenerational poverty resulting from dispossession of their land and thus the resources on it.
We attempt to further dismantle white supremacy by educating ourselves about the sovereign nations whose land we are on, by reading work by native scholars and writers, and by donating to native causes and supporting native-owned businesses. We invite everyone to do likewise.
About The Organizer
Kate Pociask (she/her)
Founder
Winter Break Milwaukee LLC
Kate is Milwaukeean who likes to give away joy for free. Her entire family struggles with the winter blues, and needs something to get them through February.
“I started Winter Break not because I love winter, but because I struggle with winter and seasonal depression. I need something to get me through February and March. It's easy to hibernate indoors all winter, but I'm happier and my body hurts less when I go outside, move around, and be in nature. “
”Milwaukee is a city of festivals, but we have a scarcity mindset around summer that results in a jam-packed calendar half the year, and very little joy in the other, at least after the holidays are over. My goal is to bring joy to the overlooked season. This year Winter Break had about 600 attendees outdoors, enjoying winter. My favorite part was the mish-mash of people who attended the Winter Surfing demo. With the continued success from the past two years, I look forward to bringing the event back next year and coaxing more people out of hibernation."
Kate is working on redesigning Milwaukee Culture, and a redemptive arc for the Midwest as a whole. She started Winter Break Milwaukee because she thinks that ignoring winter is what is holding Milwaukee back. Her day job is User Experience Designer, where she thinks about what humans need from their environments and interfaces.