We have had the incredible luck to be visiting here in Fairbanks during the preparation phases of the "Ice Alaska." This is a competition that brings the best ice sculpture artists from all over the world to Fairbanks. This great city has volunteers who come out of their cozy homes in below zero temperatures to provide food, lodging, tools, scaffolding, power, transportation, and whatever else they need, free of charge, to enable ice teams the freedom to create their exquisite artwork. I will be writing several posts about this event, since we will be visiting the show several times this week.
Back in February, local tradesman bring lots of heavy duty equipment to nearby McGrady's Lake to cut up the crystal clear blocks of lake ice. These blocks of ice not only supply the tons and tons of ice for the ice festival, but many blocks are saved under piles of sawdust to be preserved and shipped all over the world all year long! Fairbanks is world-renown for its pure crystal ice.
Ice carvers come to Fairbanks in February and set up shop to create their ice magic. They may work alone or with one partner to enter a piece in the Single Block contest. Then they will combine with other artists as a team (many times they don't all speak the same language to each other!) to submit an entry in the Multi-Block contest. However, before these two contests begin, they all work together to create a Kids Park. What a wonderland of ice fun! I wish I could bring all my third graders up here to see this. There is an ice putt-putt golf course, slides of all sizes, two kinds of mazes, ice vehicles, ice castles, a "hand slide", and so many more kinds of ice toys to play with. I have included two pictures of me going into and out of the larger ice maze. Amazing!
No comments:
Post a Comment