I thought I’d show you folks a few pictures of the Ice Park as it prepares for the upcoming Ice Carnival. I’m busy getting all the web cams up and running with new firmware and repairs here and there. We’ve already sold advertising for the entire lot of cams so we’ll have 31 cams installed in a couple weeks when the event starts.
Go here Ice Alaska to check us out. There are going to be some big sculptures near the road this year to attract visitors. I’ll get out there soon (work permitting) to get pictures. It’s been really cold here for the last week so I didn’t get out yet to take pictures and the big sculptures are over near the road…quite the hike through deep snow and -40F weather. I’ll get some pictures from over there soon.
I wandered down to the ice pond as they were setting up for ice harvest:
You can make out the grid there in the ice:
Here are some of the smaller sculptures for the kids being worked on:
These tripods hold the cameras and will be set out around the park. Off in the distance are big 7,000 pound blocks of ice for the sculptures:
A few pictures to give you a taste of the flavor of the park during -50F weather:
This is the ice skating rink:
Jeeze! Why don’t you post more often?!?!
Because I’m so busy right now getting ready for the Ice Competition.
It’s beautiful, but it looks BRUTALLY cold. *brrr* I’m glad to be having a nice mild winter for once, such a relief. You keeping warm?
Yep, no problem there…
Good to see you haven’t solidified yet. Don’t know why not.
Almost time to put the screendoors on the Igloo isn’t it? Not quite, haven’t seen any insects yet…two months to go.
I assume in the pictures of the ice grids that the loader put the 7,000lb blocks in the truck and that truck hauled them to the cutting place? They don’t use any trucks, the forklifts carry the blocks to the sites where the sculptors already have an idea of where to place them. They might get moved around a couple times later, or stacked. We have 4 forklifts working now.
Do they use a chain saw to cut the blocks and how do they detach the bottom of the block? Yes, they use a large chainsaw specifically for the job and that fits into a large jig. I think the blade is 5 foot or so, not the largest chainsaw in the world but it doesn’t need to be either. The bottom of the block is free floating in the pond so no extra work is needed to detach it. The nearby river fills up the hole left by the removed block with hydraulic pressure and a few days later that same area can be harvested again, if it stays cold enough.
I looked at some of the work created last year. Just amazing! When they make a mistake, say break a nose off the face of their work, are they allowed to just squirt water and repair it? If working in stone a mistake like that is difficult to fix but with ice it seems you could do just about anything you wanted to. True that. Yes, they are allowed to fix mistakes that way. And many pieces are put together that way to begin with. All sculptors have a squirt gun like device they use while sculpting. And within a few feet of each work space is a barrel of heated water just for using as glue.
You said it’s been really cold here the past week. Isn’t that a bit of an understatement? To me 22 degrees is really cold. Well, it’s real easy to get use to between 0F and 30F but when it dips down to -20F as a day time high, you start to notice it much more as it’s more difficult to keep warm and stay comfortable.
We’re on a two week trip into Oregon to visit friends and relatives. A bit of snow on the ground here in Medford, Oregon. Enjoy your trip into my home state!
Your days are starting to get a little longer now. I bet you enjoy that. We’re gaining around 6 minutes of sunlight every day, and that helps keep the blues away. But I have enough work to do at the Ice Park that I’ve been there every day for 3 weeks now, so I don’t notice the lack of daylight. Yesterday and today I’ve stayed home working on a project for the park and nursing a cold.
Kinda curious what you cook and eat. Does your environment affect that? Nearly everything that we eat here is shipped in from ‘Outside’ except for eggs, milk, bread, some meat, etc. The vegi’s are expensive though so we watch for sales. Since I’m at the Ice Park nearly every day, and they provide free meals for the volunteers, I haven’t had to buy groceries for weeks. The stores here have the same things you guys have down there, only much more expensive. Like $2.69/lb for cauliflower…$2/lb for radishes, etc. Vegi’s are more expensive then meat so most of the meals have a strong meat & rice component. And the meat is usually diced up and made into a soup or stew so it will go farther. And that’s because there are 400 volunteers to feed. Then there are trays of donuts and cakes and pies. I’m sick of that, much rather have vegi’s.
I grew up in Pennsylvania and know that ice can cause some serious falls, etc. Have you taken any bad falls yet? Yes, a few days ago I walked down a drive way that leads to the pond and the large ice slides and my boots gave way, my legs went up in the air and I landed soundly on my ass and back. Nothing hurt but my pride. It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to put out my hands so I didn’t break anything. But that’s been my only fall this winter so far. Not many hills in Fairbanks to begin with.
Any summer plans yet? Next winters location in mind yet? None yet, I’m still thinking about staying here another winter. Maybe until the economy gets better again.
Thanks for posting your pics, etc. Kinda nice to see how the other half lives. You are welcome! Always nice to hear from my readers.
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