The Rising Sun: A Snow Castle For You

It’s not winter yet but in anticipation of it (we’re skipping fall) I’m reporting about the Snow Festival.
Every winter, about two million people come to Sapporo to view the Snow Festival or Yuki Matsuri. Sapporo is located in Hokkaido, Japan, the northernmost island. This large and popular event lasts seven days in February. At this festival people can watch concerts (some on top of a sculpture), sled down a snow slide, go tubing, and view both large and small snow or ice sculptures made by people from all over the world. Teams from Chile, Finland, Hawaii, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Russia, Portland (Oregon), Thailand, and many others participate in this event every year. Around two million people visit this festival from Japan and around the world.
The first ever Snow Festival was held in Odori Park in 1950, with only six snow statues made by local high school students. This was during the hard times of World War II and helped cheer the local’s spirits. Eventually, even the military got interested and it soon became an international event.
Some tools any one can use to make a snow sculpture range from kitchen utensils to chainsaws and bungee cords to fabric. Of course wet snow is included in that too. Yes it has to be wet snow or else it’s too hard to mold or too soft to pack together. For professional taller sculptures a crane is used to lift snow to the top. The tallest snow sculpture ever built was 115ft high, 656ft long, and made in China. What do the artists do when the weather warms? Not much, to keep the sculpture from melting faster the artist might spray it with water to give it a protective layer of ice.

Here are some pictures of a sculpture in the 2012 Snow Festival and it’s making.