Icy display of downtown support

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This article was published 04/02/2022 (1697 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While most Winnipeggers were hunkering down as a blizzard blew through the city, two were not only embracing the elements but carving through them.

Armed with sculpturing tools, and covered from head to toe with snow gear, including ski goggles to battle snow pellets driven with such velocity they felt like grains of sand pelting against their faces, Peter Hargraves and Chris Pancoe spent Tuesday carving more than 8,000 kilograms of ice into a 13-metre-longsculpture.

“It felt like quintessential winter,” Hargraves said Friday. “It was epic. It was pretty unique. At times, it was like we were in a polar vortex there, but we both know how to dress for the conditions.

“Years from now, we’ll be able to say: remember us carving those belugas in the middle of a snowstorm?”

Entitled simply, Belugas, the now-completed ice sculpture is one of 11 scattered through the downtown as part of a special “Winter Wanderland” organized by the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone and Sputnik Architecture.

Pamela Hardman, BIZ director of marketing, engagement and communication, said it is a fun way to encourage Winnipeggers to go to various places of the downtown — and hopefully shop at businesses which have found it tough during two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The sculptures look pretty amazing,” said Hardman. “We really wanted to encourage people to support the businesses while they go downtown.

“They are really neat to see both during the day and at night. And, because these are ice sculptures, we are hoping to see the temperatures stay below zero for a few weeks so people can see them.”

Besides True North Square, sculptures have been placed at Bonnycastle Park, and outside Burton Cummings Theatre, Millennium Library, Union Centre, and Alt Hotel.

For an extra enticement to get people out on winter days or evenings, the BIZ has organized a type of scavenger hunt, Hardman said.

(Visit downtownwinnipegbiz.com for clues to find bright pink tuques on display at six businesses near the sculptures. Once found, visit BIZ on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for a chance to win a gift card.)

Hargraves said their sculpture began as five large blocks cut out of ice in the Red River and trucked outside True North Square on Saturday. The sculptors came Monday, to look at the ice and plan what they would carve, before returning Tuesday morning with their tools.

“There was a blizzard that day — this was not a good day,” he said with a laugh. “There were times we were literally blown over.

“It was like raging against a storm. On the other hand, we had nobody come to bother us because we were the only ones out there.”

By Tuesday night, the sculpture was complete. The dump of freshly fallen snow whipped into drifts was incorporated into the display.

“It would have taken too long to shovel it,” Hargraves said.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca