Fantastic Frigid and Fragile Sculptures of Snow

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.
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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