Harbin 2012

The Harbin International Snow Festival is well known and popular around the world, which is evident in all the photos that are floating around the web. Attending this event had been an aspiration of ours for some time and receiving this prestigious invitation was a great honor.

The Harbin International Snow Festival is one of world’s four largest international snow festivals, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec Winter Carnival, and Norway’s Ski Festival. It starts annually on or about January 5 and lasts for over one month, weather permitting. During this period, people from throughout the world take part in the various artistic, cultural, athletic and tourist events. On average, 800,000 people take in the festival.

The festival encompasses some of the largest snow and ice sculptures ever seen. In fact, the 2007 festival featured a sculpture that was a Guinness Record for the largest snow sculpture: 250 metres long, 28 feet (8.5 m) high, using over 13,000 cubic metres of snow.

This was the signature snow sculpture at the 2012 Harbin Snow Sculpture Competition.

We were given a block that is 10ft x 10ft x 13ft tall and had about 4 days to sculpt it. Our team in Harbin consisted of Theressa Wright (Captain and sculpture designer), Carole Dagenais, Terry Ouellette and Kim Strange. This was the first time for Carole and Kim to carve together.