Friday marks the start of Canada's National Ukrainian Festival in Dauphin.

Festival President Kayla Gillis says tent pegs went in last night, and the gates officially open at 1 p.m. Gillis is impressed by how the festival's grown over the years.

"It originally started in Dauphin, and now we're up at the Selo-Ukraine Site. So basically it's in an amphitheatre that holds up to 14,000 people and it's grown significantly since the very first festival. Throughout the years we've added our Sunday night headline grandstand show, that brought in a lot more people as well. Who knows, maybe in the future it might even be a whole week."

Gillis says they're excited for a good showing of people over the weekend.

"Depending on the year, last year we had at least 8,000 people come through the gates. It was our 50th of course, but we're looking at a couple of thousand throughout the years, depending on the year I guess, depending on the entertainment as well. I think we put on a great festival every year, and I think people cherish Ukrainian heritage so they come out to celebrate."

She lists a few new events, as well as some returning.

"Some new changes include our borsch competition this year, as well as a kolach and a pasta competition. So that's new what we've never had before, but other than that we have our petting zoo, we have a lot of children activities, our Heritage Village. So that's kind of what you see the majority of the years, that's going to be here as well."