Ice, baby. Ice, ice!
What at first may sound like the start to some more or less predictable joke, is, in fact, a cold-blooded competition in a setting protected by none other than the United Nations.
Last weekend, on the shores of frozen Lake Louise, nine teams from around the globe came together to compete in the 15th annual Ice Magic Festival organized by the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and Banff Lake Louise Tourism.
The theme of this year's festival was The Rhythms of Nature -- a fitting theme for a setting that every year lures thousands of visitors to marvel at the majestic Rocky Mountains.
Gleb Tkachenko and his two teammates travelled from the depths of Russia to carve their artistic interpretation of a Canadian peak out of several blocks of ice.
Tkachenko, hopping from one foot to the other -- Mother Nature, just for this weekend, had sent the mercury probing to depths below -20C -- allowed that this was his first foray into the artistic subculture of ice carving.
A sculptor by training, Tkachenko said he usually works with stone, wood or bronze, but ice was new to him.
A few steps away, Reverend Butter and Buddy Rassmusson of Texas were sawing and carving away on an ambitious sculpture of a cougar pouncing on a group of ducks, with a flag of the Lone Star State marking their territory.
Their project, called Prey for Me, was awarded the first prize Sunday afternoon.
Butter said until 11 years ago, he had earned his keep injecting ink into skin before sculpting ice caught his eye.
And he's stuck with it ever since.
"I'm still learning," he said about his new trade.
His tools are those a wood carver would be familiar with: A small chainsaw and chisels of various shapes and sizes.
The chisels, however, are slightly modified to give them an edge that's razor sharp and more flat than a wood-carving tool.
Rusty Cox and his two team- mates were carving on home turf -- Cox is the sous chef at the Fairview Dining Room -- and walked away with the third prize for their sculpture of a dinosaur.
For Cox, last weekend's festival marked the 12th time he has participated in the event.
He's also somewhat of a veteran of the globetrotting circuit of ice carvers.
Cox has participated in several Canadian festivals and has also travelled to Harbin, a city in northeast China that's often nicknamed the Ice City for winter conditions Albertans are all too familiar with.
Like Lake Louise, Harbin hosts an annual ice-carving competition.
The second prize in last weekend's competition went to Team Frozenart, which also hails from the U.S.
Montreal Auto Show ends this Sunday!
Southern exposures
The Ford F150 SVT Raptor R to run the ”Best in the Desert”
Weekend in Oviedo
