Former Okotokian Morton Burke was one of three Alberta sculptors to have recently returned home after competing in the World Snow Sculpture Championships in Stillwater, Minnesota.
Twelve teams from around the world were selected to participate in the Jan. 18 to 21 championships, considered the pinnacle of snow sculpture events. It is sanctioned by the World Ice and Snow Sculpture Association based in Finland.
Burke, who now lives in Bergen, captained the team that also included Will Truchon and Christian Denis, both from Edmonton. The team represented both Canada and The Atti2ude Club, of which they are all members.
"We didn't win a prize but we were a big success," said Burke, whose buffalo sculpture is on the lawn in front of the Okotoks Art Gallery.
Their sculpture for the championships, The Big Four, depicted four iconic wild animals from North America: mountain sheep, moose, bear and buffalo.
The starting block of compacted snow was an eight-foot cube. Artists are allowed to use snow from the original block to make their sculpture as high as they would like and up to three feet wider on all sides. By cutting blocks from the areas they knew they would be removing snow and piling them on top, the Alberta team doubled the height of the block, making their sculpture 16 feet tall, the tallest of the 12 sculptures.
The snow blocks they added to the top of their original block were placed so they resembled a mountain, natural habitat for the four animals depicted.
Despite not placing in the top three, the team was pleased with its work and brought home memories that will last a lifetime. Burke said strong camaraderie typically develops at these events and this one was no exception. Only team members are allowed to work on the blocks, but tools and words of encouragement were traded liberally.
Burke said Stillwater did a great job of hosting the event, including a fabulous opening ceremony, and the public — 19,000 strong — came out in droves.
Teams were allowed to work from 6 a.m. until 3 a.m. daily. The Atti2ude Club worked long hours, twice working right until the 3 a.m. cut off. On the last day, team members worked right to the minute of the signal for "tools down" when all work must stop.
After blocking out the elements and then roughly carving the forms of the animal heads, they worked around the sculpture generally, not completing any element completely. Rather, they would, for instance, carve the noses on all four animal heads and then move on to the horns or the eyes and then on to something else. This way all four animals would be finished to the same degree when tools had to be put down.
Realistically, they could have continued to carve for a few more days refining the sculpture, but they are all very pleased with the stage of development they were able to achieve over three-and-a-half days of work.
Although they had not worked together as a team before the three knew each other, they all have snow sculpture experience going back about 20 years. After this event they are looking forward to working together again to create beautiful, although impermanent, sculptures for the public to enjoy as long as they last.
