LOTS of Ice Art

Okay, so I hope you're ready for a show. These pictures are of the 2007 World Ice Art Championship sculptures. It was incredible to read the signs next to each sculpture and see where everyone comes from. There were competitors from China, Morocco, Holland, Russia, Finland, and a bunch of other places I can't remember anymore. Fairbanks hosts this competition every year, I think. Anyhow, it was fun to walk around and see these amazing sculptures. Some of the pictures aren't so great because our camera got very cold and stopped functioning properly. Seriously, that's what happened. After a while in the cold the battery thought it was running low (even though it wasn't), and our manual options gave out. We had to use the auto options for some of the shots, which means there is a flash. The flash is a bummer because then you just see ice and the flash kills the cool backlighting effect that all the sculptures had. I think the best picture of the night is this one of the camel. Doesn't it look like gold? So cool.

Keep your eye out for pieces of the sculpture that are missing. This big bug has an antenna and a leg that fell off and are on the snow beneath him. The caribou is missing a couple of horns too, but maybe that one was intentional. We've seen some real caribou around here with some messed up looking racks. We saw one that was missing one half of his rack, he had this big, long side and then nothing on the other side. How embarrassing. I bet that even in the caribou world that that would be an unfortunate physical characteristic to deal with.

It's hard to see from this angle, but this gymnast is missing his back leg from about the knee down.

There were a lot of "abstract" entries, and most of them were okay at best. But I really loved this one. It was called "Denali Rain" or something like that. The big blocks in front are mountains and you can see some little Dall Sheep hanging out on them. Then the big circular clouds have rain pouring down from them. It was lit up so beautifully and made me wistful for summer weather and precipitation that isn't snow.

This is one of the okay abstract entries. I don't know what it was supposed to be, so use your imagination.

This was SO much more impressive in person. The pagodas in the front are so detailed and delicate, and the thing in the back is a woman holding a lantern (or something like that). It was spectacular.

This was my favorite of the night. The picture just doesn't do it justice. The multi-block sculptures (the biggest ones) were at the end of the loop we were walking around, and by that time our camera was cold and quitting on us. This sculpture is called "Elijah" and represents Elijah being taken into heaven. You can see Elijah on the right, leading the chariot up into the sky and then the huge stallion above him. I mean, this thing was HUGE. It was so tall and grand. Absolutely breathtaking.

Here are a few shots of us freezing our tushies off. It was maybe -5 while we were out that night, which in our skewed Alaskan minds isn't all that cold. But the problem was that we were walking around in that temperature for at least an hour and by the end of it we were all so cold and a little bit miserable. In these pictures you can see the vapors of our breath. Kind of cool.

Near the end of the loop was a few ice blocks just sitting there. I don't know if they were leftovers or what, but they were just plopped there and Erik figured that'd be a great spot for a photo. By this point we were all SO cold that when he dared us to a contest to see who could sit on the ice for the longest we all said, "no thanks...you win." I hate to back down from a dare, but seriously, it was freezing out there! He's a champ.

They had some carvings advertising sponsors of the event and Cellular One put up this working phone booth. It really had a dial tone when you picked it up.

We wanted a picture together and this was towards the end. A nice but not very spectacular sculpture, but we just wanted to get the picture and then take our sorry little frozen bodies to the car to warm up. Next time we will remember to dress in as many layers as will fit in our warmest coats. That was sort of my problem this year. This is my warmest coat, but with my burgeoning belly it's hard to cram enough layers underneath it. Oh well, we're told that Spring is on its way. I'm not sure if I believe it, but I sure dream about it. I told Erik that I'm planning on our next assignment being in Hawaii. I know there's a whole process involved in receiving our next assignment, but don't worry...I've already decided that that's what it'll be, so that's what will happen. Just wait.