U of C students spreading cheer with adorable 'snow ducks'

Ducks made of snow cheering up U of C students Post-secondary life is draining but this piece of artwork made of snow is lifting spirits on campus at the University of Calgary.

The mental struggles of a post-secondary student can be challenging at the beginning of a new semester, but some University of Calgary students are spreading a little extra cheer on campus by crafting hundreds of tiny ducks out of snow.

Prompted by last week’s massive snow dump and frigid cold temperatures, third-year computer science student Jason Ngu decided to get creative.

“There was snow all over the place, there was seasonal depression, my friends were kind of sad and so I bought some of these simple clapping devices and brought them to campus,” he said.

“I asked my friends ‘Yo dudes, you want to make some snow ducks?’ They started out nice and simple, we went outside the Math Sciences building and made like 30 of them in 10 minutes, it was a great time.”

But those 30 ducks outside of a single campus building were quickly noticed by students who started posting photos on social media.

“Everyone was talking about it, even one of my professors brought it up in a lecture,” Ngu said.

That’s when Ngu and his friends started making hundreds more ducks. The tiny snow sculptures started showing up outside Science Theatres, the Arts buildings, on window sills at the university’s libraries and everywhere in between.

Some of the ducks are bigger than others and weigh up to 15 pounds. Fellow computer science student Raine Legary thought it was so much fun that he couldn’t help but want to create even more.

“Jason had the idea and so I thought we had to just make a bunch of them,” he said.

“I stayed for the fun interactions. We started handing them out to other students walking by. They were smiling saying ‘Oh wow, those ducks are awesome’ and it was fun to show people how to make them.”

Some of those students walking by Friday morning included Abeer Alsai who was so excited to finally meet those who had been making the ducks all week.

“It made me really happy because you know seasonal depression is a real thing, cold weather makes us not as excited to come to university, but just seeing this cute duck around puts a smile on your face,” she said.

Other students, like Bo Li, were impressed by how many ducks could be created in such a short period of time.

“It’s really cool, you know you feel so stressed with all your homework and your studies, but when you see these ducks on the way to your library or classroom, it brightens my day,” he said.

The random acts of kindness in creating a small snow duck and handing it to others have also inspired some people on campus to give back.

Elisa Cheung is the operating partner and owner of the local Good Earth coffee shop at the Taylor Family Digital Library.

When she saw students handing out the ducks, she went outside to hand them warm cups of coffee and hot chocolate, as well as several gift cards to hand out.

“A lot of people don't realize that when students come, there's highs and lows, maybe they're the first person in their family leaving home or maybe it's the first time they've ever left home,” Cheung said.

“So there's a lot of joy and happiness, ups and downs or seasons of emotions for sure. These little ducks kind of bring the spark of joy. It spreads a lot of kindness, and the ducks have started to become something we believe in too.”

As for Ngu, he says more than 1,000 ducks have been created on campus so far and he’ll continue to spread as much cheer as possible.

“People might be having a bad day, the world is so big yet this duck is so small and it can change the world just by existing,” he said.

“We’ve created joy and happiness from nothing.”