Ice Palaces

Winter seems to be winding down in Chicago. Last night's thunderstorms gave way to near 50 degree temperatures and the earth smells like Spring. I know this is just a taste of warm days in the far future, but I'm missing a real winter. One filled with snow and ice and hot chocolate. In Quebec, the festivities of winter are in full swing with the Carnaval de Quebec. The Carnival is an annual tradition of snow, canoe races, effigies, and Bonhomme (the mascot snowman). The most stunning part of the festival is the enormous Ice Palace.

The mascot needs a place to live, of course, so the Ice Palace was built in 1955 to house Bonhomme. Through the years of the festival, this palace has been an important center for the festival: lights, entertainment, and a (pretend) jail for people who don't honor Bonhomme's effigy are all housed in the palace. The site of the palace moves from year to year, but the festival is always centered around the huge ice structure.

Creating this palace is no easy task, especially the first year. Similar to a real palace, an artist's blueprints laid the plan for 15 workers to build the castle. It took two months, about $85,000 CAN, and 9,000 tons of compacted snow to build the palace. The result was stunning even then, but last year's palace was even larger and had fantastic light displays. The palace also took more than half as much time to complete: only 25 days were needed to build all of the Carnival's structures.

Much like an igloo, these structures are built from compacted snow bricks. First, a plan for the structure like a real house needs to be planned out. Then, it will take several people and 4 to 5 hours in near zero-degree weather to get together all of the snow needed for the structure. After the snow sits overnight, bricks can finally be made and the structure formed. These are plans for a simple igloo-sized structure. To build an ice palace, of course, takes much more work.

Why build an ice palace such as the annual ones in the Carnaval de Quebec? Of course, it's beautiful and is a tradition, but building a structure that grand takes much planning and work to complete. The palace is like a sculpture: an artistic expression created for the desire of creation. It's an opportunity to collaborate with fellow artists to craft something beautiful that thousands of people will enjoy. The satisfaction of planning and building such an enormous project must be even more enormous than the palace itself.