Fantastic Frigid and Fragile Sculptures of Snow

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Far from child’s play that goes beyond the conventional carrot-nosed snowman, artists have long crafted chilly creations of snow sculptures. From small blocks of snow to epic proportions, transforming enormous snow blocks into larger than life masterpieces of an ethereal nature, some top the scales at 20 to 30 tons, measuring hundreds of feet in length.

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Photo Amsterdamned

Typically using nothing more than simple hand tools such as shovels, hatchets, and saws, snow sculptures and carvings are often created in full view of spectators, thus giving it kinship to performance art.

Winter festivals have prominently held snow sculpting competitions throughout the world in cold climes, most notably in Sapporo, Japan, the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in China, the Quebec City Winter Carnival in Canada, and various other locations including Perm, Russia, and the U.S. The Saint Paul Winter Carnival in Minnesota is allegedly the oldest annual winter carnival in the world, with the first dating back to 1886.

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Harbin 2009 Ice & Snow Festival. This 394-foot (120-meter) long Snow Sculpture
is still in the carving process. Photo Frankartculinary

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Harbin 2009 Ice & Snow Festival. Photo Frankartculinary

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Harbin 2009 Ice & Snow Festival. Photo Frankartculinary

In a sneak peak at the 2009 Harbin festival, about 200 snow sculptures of all sizes are currently being displayed, or are still in carving progress. It’s been held since 1963, and one of the world’s 4 largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway’s Ski Festival.

The Zhao Lin Park is its designated location, along with several expositions held including the artistic Snow Sculptures at the Park on Sun Island, and the Ice Carvings at the Zhao Lin Park. The Harbin Ice & Snow World is gigantic and illuminated at night, and the Disney Ice Festival is located in the City Centre.

It lasts from January to late February every year with winter temperatures frequently dropping from -4°F to -31°F. (-20° to -35° C).

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Harbin 2009 Ice & Snow Festival. Photo Frankartculinary

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Harbin 2009 Ice & Snow Festival. Photo Frankartculinary

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Harbin 2009 Ice & Snow Festival. Snow Train with a Steam Engine on each side.
The wagons are partly carved out for visitors to go inside. Photo Frankartculinary

Entitled ‘Romantic Feelings,’ the 2008 Harbin snow sculpture was designed to be the world’s largest, measuring about 115 feet (35 meters) tall and 532 feet (162 meters) long. It was made by joining together 15-foot square blocks of natural ice and snow taken from the nearby Songhua River, which have been compressed to withstand blows from hatchets, saws and shovels.

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‘Romantic Feelings,’ largest snow sculpture at Harbin in 2008. Photo Emma JG

The 2007 festival featured the Canadian theme, in memoriam of Canadian doctor Norman Bethune. It has a Guinness World Record of the largest snow sculpture measuring 28 feet (8.5 meters) high and 820 feet (250 meters) long, using over 13,000 cubic meters of snow. The composition consisted of 2 parts — “Niagara Falls” and “Crossing the Bering Strait” (the latter depicting the migration of the First Nations).

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World’s largest snow sculpture 2007. Photo Dayout.com

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World’s largest snow sculpture 2007. Photo Dayout.com

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Snow sculpture at Harbin. Photo Global Eyes

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Lady Liberty snow sculpture at Harbin. Photo Global Eyes

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Ice and Snow World in Harbin. Photo Lin Yang

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Ice and Snow World in Harbin. Photo Lin Yang

The famous Sapporo Snow Festival is one of Japan’s largest winter events held annually over 7 days in February. During the 58th Festival in 2007, about 2 million people visited Sapporo to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures at Odori Park and Susukino sites, in central Sapporo, and the Satoland site.

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Sapporo Snow Festival 2008. Photo Christopher Chan

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Sapporo Snow Festival 2008. Photo Christopher Chan

The Snow Festival began in 1950, when local high school students built 6 snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Self-Defense Force joined in and built the very first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has become famous for. The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become one of the largest and most well known of Hokkaido’s winter events.

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Entwined mermaids. Photo Boliyou

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Photo Amynrobc

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Old Man Winter. Photo Srboisvert

How to Create Massive Snow Sculptures
So just how do these artists create such mammoth sized snow sculptures? According to Snowfes, a wooden frame is built and filled with tightly packed snow — based on a blueprint and small model of the sculpture — which also serves as scaffolding.

Once the packed snow is hardened, the frame panels are removed and the carving carefully begins. Hatchets and shovels are used to outline the sculpture, and then details are added.

Since warmer daytime temperatures make the sculptures fragile, many sculptors work at night.

When the sculpture is completed, the scaffoldings are removed, along with accumulated snowfall and icicles that have formed on the carving.

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Panhandler. Photo Srboisvert

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Life cycle. Photo Srboisvert

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Polar bear & the Fortress of Solitude. Photo Srboisvert

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Mini fort made of ice was part of a snow sculpture exhibition in the Hokkaido Mountains.
Photo Kinobiel

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Photo Srboisvert

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Eagles fighting over fish. Photo Boliyou

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Eagles fighting over fish. Photo Boliyou

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Photo Boliyou

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Mayan god. Photo Boliyou

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Photo Boliyou

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Picking mushrooms. Photo Boliyou

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Photo Boliyou

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Photo RandiHphotos

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Photo Sandra Leidholdt

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Small world. Photo Enggul

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Daddy’s boy. Photo Enggul

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Photo Mike G

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Photo Mike G

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Photo Mike G

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Photo Mike G

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Snow carvings from competitions in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Photo Chilkoot

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Photo IvoDivo

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Dinosaurs. Photo Just-Jen

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Pinocchio. Photo Clairity

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Full-sized Taj Mahal. Photo Just-Jen

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Slinky dog. Photo Daily Invention

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Photo Daily Invention

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Aladdin. Photo Daily Invention

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Photo IvoDivo

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Photo IvoDivo

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Photo IvoDivo

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Photo IvoDivo

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Violins. Photo Mathew Ingram

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Photo Mathew Ingram

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Speed skater. Photo Dano

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Photo Robbie

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Photo Shutterfly

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Photo Cellar Door

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Photo Robbie

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Photo Michael R Johnson

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Photo Mulad

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Chief and his horse. Photo ShaadowFox

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Snowbirds. Photo ShaadowFox

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Photo Mikey G ottawa

Source: Wikipedia

Related stories:
Natures Spectacular Geometry of Snowflakes Frost and Ice
Amazing Chinese Ice Sculpture Festival
Incredible Ice Hotels and Snow Castles of Finland

Recommended reads:
Ice Kingdom by True Romania
The Table of Silence by Routine – Romania Simply Surprising
Branding, Torturing, and Murdering Animals for Art by WebEcoist
The Man Who Saved a Billion Lives by Neatorama

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41 Responses to “ Fantastic Frigid and Fragile Sculptures of Snow ”

  1. Kramer auto Pingback[...] Fantastic Frigid and Fragile Sculptures of Snow view! IMAGE — lifeinthefastlane.ca (Odd Stuff) submitted 4 min ago 0 Comments Share Bury Favorite? SeaMowse submitted [...]

  2. Kramer auto Pingback[...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]

  3. Cool, listing your many favorite stumbles as an aggregator on your blog. I’ll have to “borrow” your idea! Dosh Dosh is a favorite for me — I frequent his site and have gleaned some very useful tips over the past months.

  4. I just visited the ice sculpture exposition in Bruges (Belgium) and it was absolutely magic. Much smaller of course and inside.
    The figures you show are very beautiful. Here you can have a look on the pictures I took from the exposition :

    http://gattinatravels.blogspot.com/

  5. Awesome Deborah – you’ve done it again! What a pity the results of such artistic talent is so ephemeral. I’ve always felt that snow is for looking at – not living with/in – and what you show here is sure great to look at!
    Robin

  6. Wow – that is so cool. I have been skiing in Europe for the last 20 years and have never seen now sculpted like that before. Collections of cool things like this are one of those little gems that makes the web so cool,
    Thank you
    caspar

  7. I’ve once been to Harbin Ice and Snow Festival in 2004, and believe me, the whole scenery is totally outstanding and unbelievably magnificent, Deborah!

    wilson’s last blog post..Remember Not to Over Do it!

  8. WOW :O Awesome! Really fantastic sculptures of snow. Happy to see new cool ideas. Nothing to add or correct,everything is perfect! I really enjoied =) Thanks!
    Greetings from Spain…

  9. Wow, thanks Lucinda, glad you enjoy my stumbles :-) Maki is great, you can’t go wrong with his advice on Dosh Dosh.

    Thanks Gattina, I’ll have to come visit later in the day (I haven’t been to bed yet) ;-) I hope you’re game for writing a guest post here about it, I was thinking of you when I was putting this post together :-)

    Thank you Robin :-) It really is sad that this form of artwork is so fleeting.

    Thanks Caspar :-)

    I don’t doubt you for a second, Wilson, I’m envious of your trip :-)

  10. Ohhh I LOVE IT!! I am always inspired by Fastlane’s blog! I recently tried to make a simple snowman… what a JOKE! It is not that easy even for me, an artist. WONDERFUL VISIONS HERE!!

    Kathy

    Kathy Ostman-Magnusen’s last blog post..KathysArt: Got some great ‘press’ for my "Mr. Magnusen" painting! YAY! http://tinyurl.com/8vydf4

  11. Thanks Kathy :-) I’d be in the same boat as you … snow sculpting is definitely not one of my talents ;-)

  12. Kramer auto Pingback[...] mandatory water rationing by summer. But I digress. For those of you with lots of snow everywhere, here’s a link to some fab snow sculpture pix. Give you some ideas of what to do with it all. [...]

  13. Beautiful sculptures! I’m actually lucky enough to live where at least one of the sculptures was created and every February it’s so much fun to drive around the city and look at that year’s creations. Talk about talent! Thanks for showcasing these!

    CindyM’s last blog post..Get Away from Winter with All Inclusive Cancun Trips

  14. Kramer auto Pingback[...] Frigid and Fragile Sculptures of Snow view photo 1 vote [...]

  15. Amazing images! I am voting up at Stumble Upon too!

    Stephanie’s last blog post..Coal Attempts Cool

  16. The Lady Liberty picture is by far one of the best that I have come across on the internet! Apart from making me laugh out loud, it also go me thinking. A combination of art and photography led to the realization of the thought process.

    The sculpture looks like it is mocking the man, as well as being embarrassed at doing so. Fantastic picture!

    Erynion’s last blog post..The world is not enough anymore!

  17. It`s amazing! I never saw anything like this! Breathtaking!

  18. These are amazing!

    Michael de`Oz’s last blog post..Newgrange

  19. Those are some of the most amazing sculptures I have ever seen. We don’t often take winter vacations, but after seeing those pictures I think we might plan one in the future.

  20. These are beautiful!!!

  21. Hey they are amazing….i have never seen such sculpture…

  22. wow this is amazing
    and you know, its exactly the type of pics
    that i need for my french oral project
    you are outstanding
    thank you so much for publishing
    these pics cuz
    i really needed them
    great

    btw i love what you write in the subtitles

    thanks again

    bye now
    be sure to go on http://www.gaiaonline.com
    kk

  23. Amazing this is done! Great photos. They look like they can come to life. Thanks for sharing!

  24. Amazing photos! Makes me feel like I was there! Thanks for sharing!

    B. Gutsch’s last blog post..How hard is it to keep in touch?

  25. i belive that i am not dreaming….are these really real…these are the best ever creatures i have seen in my life…i dont have words to preaise it….amazing post…200 out of 100….thanx for sharing it…

  26. Unbelievable. It amazes me that there are people who are this good at this stuff… then I always begin to think of how much time it must have taken them spending on such a bizarre pursuit to become that good ;)

    Sharon’s last blog post..Scrapbooking Inspiration

  27. These are amazing to look at. You have to keep reminding yourself that they are carved from snow, they appear as if they are carved from stone. It is a shame that they have to melt at some point.

    Mickey’s last blog post..Government outrage instead of accountability

  28. Bow-wow! These figures are great! Real great!
    My friends (in Russian Fedaration: Belgorod and Belebeno) has the same festivals too. But compositions are not so great.

    Logica Uspeha’s last blog post..Миф (отговорка): «Это невозможно!» | Мифы и мир бизнеса

  29. Kramer auto Pingback[...] para ampliar Veja mais aqui, em [...]

  30. These are amazing!

    Michael de`Oz’s last blog post..Истинная история рода Баскервилей

  31. It is a shame they are only temporary, which makes us appreciate them even more. Imagine if we could make an entire city from these in the antarctic!

  32. I am feeling very cold now…I can still feel the cold and I am still shivering…lol

    Steven Hall’s last blog post..Spray Tan Success

  33. Kramer auto Pingback[...] Sculptures of Snow Jan 15, 7:20pm    (22 reviews)  arts  http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/fantasti…Fantastic Sculptures of Snow Delete this site from your [...]

  34. Thanks for the photos – looking ahead to a little snow in Atlanta this winter. Talk about “fleeting moments”.
    The room temp has just dropped about 5 degrees since I’ve opened your page.

  35. I came back again to look at these as winter is not far away. These are really some works of art that should not melt.
    .-= Gourmet Candles´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.

  36. Very nice photos

  37. You have good photos.

    I like snow but I can’t see snow in my city.

  38. It’s so hard to believe the amount of detail put into these snow and ice sculptures! The Steam Engine Train looks so unbelievably real!
    .-= AJ @ Model Train Scenery´s last blog ..Do Follow Blog, Comment Luv, Keyword Luv =-.

  39. All good pics.
    Thanx.

  40. Very good.

  41. Beautiful blog.
    And this photo also good.

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