Photo by Kay Koerner
“Jonah” created by Steve Brice, Louis Manzoni, Jeff Stahl, and Tom Lewando, won first place in the realistic Multi-block Ice art. The photo was taken on sunday March 9th.
Photo by Chris Cruthers
Junichi Nakamara who has carved ice for 25 years works on an owl face for the Japanese team’s “I Got Dinner” multi-block ice sculpture.
Photo by Chris Cruthers
Ken Abramowiz rides down the ice slide with his daughter Kristine.
Photo by Kay Koerner
“Dragon Riders” won 7th place in the realistic Multi-block on Sunday March 9th.
Photo by Chris Cruthers
“Ice Riders” was carved by Steve Dean and Alec Turner.

The competitors in last week’s World Ice Art Championships worked with an interesting variable this year: temperatures in the 40’s. Although this was a difficult hurdle to overcome, officials at Ice Alaska had the situation under control to keep the multi-block sculptures from melting. Large amounts of dry ice were brought in to keep the artwork frozen.

With large crowds of the Fairbanks community arriving Saturday for the final judging, no one would have expected the biggest pressure to be on the structural integrity of the sculptures. With the efforts of all involved, the judging and ceremonies went off without a hitch.

There was a wide variety of beautiful sculptures on display, ranging from mythical creatures to an icy depiction of Melville’s Moby Dick. Even more diverse were the artists involved—many of them thousands of miles away from home. Just prior to the judging, as the sun went down, the artistic creations were at their prime.

The intricacies of the sculpting are truly amazing. These artists do things with ice that seem impossible, and it is always quite refreshing to see different kinds of art. Observing the multi-block competition wasn’t the only fun Mar. 9.

The kid’s park was adorned with slides, fun for both children and adults. Although the single-block sculpture competition ended a week prior to Saturday’s ceremony, some of the carvings were still up for viewing; others were not as lucky. With the focus shifted to the multi-block competition, the heat of the preceding days had taken its toll on the single blocks. Some were in the process of slowly melting and dripping away, while others had been destroyed entirely.

The judges made their rounds throughout the multi-block sculptures starting at 6 p.m., carefully calculating the winners of the realistic and abstract categories. “Jonah” by Steve Brice, Louis Manzoni, Jeff Stahl and Tom Lewando received first place in the realistic category. The carving depicts a biblical scene in which Jonah attempts to defy God’s wishes for him to deliver a prophecy of destruction to the city of Nineveh. When attempting to escape, Jonah was swallowed by a large fish and brought back to Nineveh. The piece shows the fish preparing to swallow Jonah in intricate detail.

The winner of the abstract category was “The Tree of Knowledge and the Forbidden Fruit” by Vitaly Lednev, Sergey Loginov, Steve Armance and Chuck Carpenter, which displayed an abstract view of the tree of knowledge and the forbidden fruit.

Ice Alaska is open for viewing of the sculptures daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. until Mar. 23, when the park closes.