St. Paul’s Harriet Island was looking more like an arctic playground this afternoon as a snow slide, Jimmy Buffett’s airplane and ice carvings were steadily taking shape.

The first of several dozen truckloads of ice arrived at the riverfront park at about 3:30 p.m. from Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis.

Building and electrical crews had hoped to start construction of the maze by late morning, but crews at Nokomis experienced a delay in transporting the giant ice blocks. Altogether, 2,500 blocks will be needed to build the 100-foot-wide illuminated labyrinth.

“The delay was when the ice blocks were coming off the conveyor belt. They needed a Bobcat to pick them up one at a time,” said Kate Kelly, CEO and president of the St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation. “That’s 2,500 trips.”

Kelly said she’s hoping to open the maze sometime Saturday, one day after the carnival begins.

Meanwhile at Harriet, eight teams of ice carvers – a few of them guzzling Red Bull – began sculpting ice blocks into works of art. They’ll saw, blowtorch and even iron the ice to perfection until the two-day contest concludes noon Friday. Among the entries: St. George slaying a dragon, outdoor Minnesota scenes and the downtown St. Paul skyline.

One of the carvers, Bob Halvorson, who goes by the moniker “Buzzsaw Bob,” will be getting plenty of attention. He’s the subject of a short documentary by Jeremy Brunjes, 26, a South St. Paul native and a graduate student of film production at New York University.

He said he’s hoping to do one five-minute piece “following the drama over the next 48 hours” by focusing on Halvorsen and his team. In addition, Brunjes might do a larger project on the culture of ice carving with footage from ice carving competitions around the country.

Both Brunjes and his second cameraman, filmmaker Jeremy Carr of Minneapolis, recall childhood memories of the 1986 ice palace at Lake Phalen. The two friends, who met at South St. Paul Senior High School, said the Winter Carnival was a natural goldmine for stories.

“For a lot of us who grew up in the area, there’s kind of a mystique to the treasure hunt and grand palaces of ice,” said Carr, 27. “It lends itself to a magical realism.”

Copyright 2007 Pioneer Press.