The biggest attraction of the icefest at Lake Sebago was the ice and snow sculpture.
The pre-event publicity had talked about an ice miniature golf course. It turned out to be the regular miniature golf course at the resort where the event was being held, with the addition of ice sculpture hazards. I think this hole has two ice squirrels facing each other.
That wasn’t all that impressive. Much of the snow sculpture was, flat out, spectacular. In a big tent, which was there to keep the sun (and I guess any additional snow or sleet) off the sculptures, were two monumental snow sculptures and one full-sized sculpture of a Mercedes convertible made of ice.
Snow being snow, you use specialized tools for sculpting it. One sculptor was using a scraper, sort of two concentric cylinders with coarse saw teeth along one edge. Another showed us a snow saw, cut from eighth-inch aluminum plate, with very coarse but not awfully sharp looking teeth. I think it was home made by one of them, but maybe there’s a web site where you can buy saws for snow sculpture (I couldn’t find one, but google ‘Snow Sculpture’ if you’re in a snow-deprived part of the world and have never heard of this endeavor). It looked as though you could rough out a shape from packed snow in a few seconds with it.
The most impressive sculpture there was billed as a fire-breathing snow dragon with a tail kids could sled down.
There was even a dragon-slaying knight challenging the monster:
The fire wasn’t in operation when we were there, but there sure was a line of kids with sleds waiting their turn to go down the track all the way down the dragon’s spine.