Novice ice carvers compete to create the coolest sculpture at Winterlude

It was a bitterly cold day in Ottawa, but Winterlude continued. CTV’s Camille Wilson reports on the second weekend of the annual winter festival.

It was a chilly day in the capital, but that didn’t stop first time carvers from taking a public ice-craving challenge for Winterlude on Saturday.

At the Crystal Garden at Confederation Park, ten duos of novices signed up for the Ryan Hill Ice-Carving Public Challenge to create sculptures of their choice.

The teams were paired up with a professional ice carver and given a couple of hours to learn the craft for the first time.

Ellize Manzo, one the challenge’s participants, says she likes to draw but has never carved before.

“We’re very excited. It’s the first time,” says Manzo.

It’s a judged event and winners were picked at the end of the day.

“This year we’ve actually renamed the event to the Ryan Hill Public Challenge. The reason is Ryan Hill actually participated in this event in 2013 and won his first time ever doing ice carving,” says Melanie Brault, Director of Capital Celebrations with Canadian Heritage. “What’s super amazing is he became an international ice carver, and he actually did ice carvings for us for over 12 years here at Winterlude”

“He’s become a member of our ice carving family - part of our winterlude family. Unfortunately, he passed away last spring and so we’ve decided to rename the public challenge in his honor,” says Brault.

Carving participants Mathieu Roussel-Lewis and Jenny Chen say they were hoping to pull off their idea but were there for the fun oof the experience.

“We were curious about the ice carving, so when we saw that this competition was happening, we wanted to try it out. Try to do some of our own creations,” says Roussel-Lewis.

Over at Rideau Hall, the Governor General hosted her winter celebrations as part of Winterlude.

The public was invited to participate in games and fun demonstrations and enjoy food and hot beverages.

“We’re excited to come every year, despite the cold. We’ve been coming for the last four years,” says Malvina Nedko, attending Winterlude at Rideau Hall. “We like the estate. We enjoy coloring inside. It’s a really good family event.”

Winterlude continues at Confederation Park Crystal Garden with ice sculptures and at Syjr now Flake Kingdom at Jacques-Cartier Park with tubing, snow igloos and a Ferris wheel.

The free Sno-Bus shuttle is available to help travel from location to location.

Winterlude runs until February 16th.

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