The carefully researched random thoughts of Ryan Long

Ice Sculptures in Fairbanks March 14, 2008

It is the time of year, March to be precise, when sculptors come from all over the world to compete in the Winter Carnival in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is a spectacular event with Americans, Japanese and Russians all trying to be the best. However, it wasn’t always this way. My mother cames here in the 1950s and they celebrated it much differently.

There was a king and queen for the carnival with thrones and elaborate seats carved out of ice. Then they would place huge hides on the seats made of bear, grizzly and moose. The ice came from lakes and gravel pits. there was a huge ceremony and crowns made of ivory, gold nuggets and diamonds were placed on their heads. There was a banquet, followed by an orchestra and dancing; although, everyone was dressed in formal clothes. The North American Dogsled Races were held at approximately the same time. The natives all came to town wearing their finest fur parkas, mukluks and hats.

Now the words Winter Carnival are hardly mentioned because it seems like all the events are separated. There wasnt a big competition in the ice sculptures, if you wanted to participate and carve you just did it. Now it is a world wide competition. The ice sculptures are now much more exotic with themes and large crews to beat the sunshine and get the sculpture finished by deadline. There are a lot more power tools available now and that makes it faster to cut through the big blocks of ice. Now there is a sort of park by the Comfort Inn to go through and look at all the sculptures for a fee. It is a much grander scale now but this is a little bit of history I thought everyone might enjoy.