Daily BrewWarm winter weather leads Canadian ice carvers to adopt creative solutions
[Ice sculptor Mowafak Nema of Ottawa puts the final touches on his ‘Lost Memories’ themed sculpture during the first day of Winterlude in Ottawa on Friday, January 31, 2014. photo: CP]
If there is one thing that Canadians should be able to count on, it’s a winter sufficiently cold enough to enjoy our favourite winter activities. With record-breaking warm temperatures across Canada’s east and reaching as far as the North Pole this year, artists of ice and snow are wondering what kind of mess this winter is going to bring.
Suguru Kanbayashi has been carving ice since his teen years, and watching his father practice the art for even longer. Ikuo Kanbayashi was taught the skill by the first Japanese artists to bring ice carving to Canada, back in the 1980s. Now 37, Suguru is following in his father’s footsteps as the President of the Canadian Ice Carvers Society and a winner of numerous awards.
Ice is an incredibly changeable medium, he explains in an interview with Yahoo Canada. Temperatures that are too warm and too cold can have a strange impact on the ice’s texture and appearance, causing flaws or weaknesses. Organizers of Canadian winter festivals, which usually take place in the last half of January, have a hard time predicting the weather ahead of time. Even when they do have time to prepare, there are limited options for dealing with warm temperatures.
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The last time Kanbayashi had a great deal of trouble was at Winterlude in Ottawa.
“It was 2004, I think, the last year we had a really warm El Niño winter,” he says. “And it wasn’t just warm. It was raining.”
The trouble that artists had keeping everything together – Kanbayashi said several sculptures fell apart mid-contest – prompted festival organizers to come up with some solutions for future events. Now the carving competition is held under large tarps, as needed, to protect both carvings and carvers from the elements.
Ottawa isn’t the only festival where weather can be a problem. “We have had some warm temperatures over the years,” admits Ice on Whyte festival producer Wanda Bornn. “The highest we ever had was +12 C.” Though Edmonton isn’t exactly known for its warm winters, sometimes it happens.
[Ice sculpture at the Ice on Whyte festival in Edmonton on Jan. 25, 2015. photo: Ice on Whyte Festival via Facebook]
“The artists are incredibly talented and they always find a way to create amazing work for visitors to see. In 2015, it was quite warm so the artists dressed up in beach wear, cranked up the beach music and put on a show for visitors.” How the Ice on Whyte festival decides to deal with inclement weather is decided between the artists, judges and festival producers as needed, Bornn says. With limited options, in the past they’ve used dry ice in cardboard enclosures around sculptures to help keep them cooler.
At Carnaval de Québec, while they don’t have an ice carving competition, they do have a snow sculpting event and an ice castle with some decorative sculpture. “Sometimes,” Director of Operations Daniel Bouchard says, “we can use tarpaulins to protect the snow blocks or ice blocks before the sculptors began to work. But, when the sculptures are began, it’s very hard to protect them. Our snow sculptures event is too big to be inside a refrigerated place.”
Most ice events aren’t ideal for refrigeration, Kanbayashi explains, but that hasn’t stopped organizers from trying. He mentioned the Great Lakes International Ice Carving Competition in Buffalo as one that has used refrigeration in the past.
Still, most Canadian competitions don’t have much to worry about, since their ice is man-made. This makes the biggest difference, he says. Festivals that must rely on the weather to produce enough ice, like Ice Alaska in Fairbanks, and the Ice Snow Festival in Harbin, China are much more susceptible to challenges if things don’t get cold enough for freezing.
[Castle made of ice blocks at the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in China on Jan. 5, 2016. photo: Getty Images]
The Harbin festival is a sight to see, the entire city transformed into an ice-carved wonderland, streets filled with massive sculptures, all carved with ice cut from the local river. “Once we found a whole fish, frozen alive inside the block we were carving,” Kanbayashi laughed. It would be hard to mimic that experience without the benefit of a frozen river, but this isn’t a problem that most Canadian ice carvers face.
In fact, Kanbayashi says the biggest factor affecting the industry and the art in Canada is the economy. While he works primarily as a software engineer, carving in his free time, professional ice carvers take big hits when luxury spending drops. “It’s an ethereal art,” he said. “It can never last.” Ice carvings aren’t exactly a solid investment, or an easy hobby to take up.
If you can’t afford to hire your own personal ice carver, where should you head if you want to be guaranteed a winter festival that’s as cold and icy as you want? Head to Lake Louise.
Helena Cox, Media Manager for Banff Lake Louise Tourism, tells Yahoo Canada: "We’ve actually been quite lucky with the temperatures during the Ice Magic festival over the past 20 years and while there’s definitely been warmer and colder winters over that time, we’re lucky in the Rockies that in January you can pretty much guarantee a snowy winter wonderland!”
[Sculpture at the Lake Louise Ice Magic festival. photo: Banff Lake Louise Tourism via Facebook]
