Sculptors readying Festival du Voyageur’s iconic snow sculptures ahead of kick off

Carvers are working away to ready Festival du Voyageur’s iconic ice sculptures ahead of the annual winter event.

With the countdown on to this year’s Festival du Voyageur, snow carvers are hard at work to ready the event’s iconic snow sculptures.

Artist David MacNair spent Saturday on Provencher Boulevard, whittling away at a massive hunk of ice, slowly transforming it into a 16-foot-tall snow sculpture called “The Warmth of Our Home.”

He works as part of the artist trio known as The Three Amigos. The Provencher installation is their eighth created in anticipation of this year’s festival, which kicks off on Feb. 13.

“Once you get started, the design sometimes can look simple, and then you run into some problems and you realize ‘okay, this is got more work than what we were after,’” he told CTV News.

This is MacNair’s 40th year carving frozen works of art for the annual winter festival.

He said the key is to choose large, hefty designs that will withstand all types of conditions – from an arctic deep freeze with bone chilling wind chills to the other end of Mother Nature’s proverbial spectrum.

“We want to make sure that it’s something that’s going to last even if it jumps up to plus five,” he said.

The massive scale involved with this kind of snow sculpting is exactly why he comes back year after year.

Another added bonus of the cold medium – the warm reception it receives.

“The people of Winnipeg love it,” he said.

“We get honked at a lot and people stop and say ‘can we get you a coffee?’ and things like that, so their appreciation of what we do makes you feel good.”