King Boreas, time to eat humble pie.
The same dudes who are plotting to give you the boot next month – those fire-mongering Vulcans – have arrived to save your wintry butt.
Thanks to them, the Winter Carnival’s Snow Sculpting Competition, which carnival officials axed last week for lack of money, is safe, carnival officials say.
Now, the competition will be at the State Fairgrounds near Cooper Street and Randall Avenue. The building of snow blocks – which the artists will use to make their masterpieces – will begin Sunday morning.
The Vulcans are pitching in about $10,000, carnival officials say, and they’ve found ways to save $15,000 to $20,000 by forgoing the snow-making machines and moving to the Fairgrounds.
That brings the competition into reach financially.
“Leave it to the Vulcs to get it done in the 11th hour,” said Kate Kelly, president of the St. Paul Festival & Heritage Foundation, which runs the carnival.
The men in red and black may have the job of usurping King Boreas and ushering in spring, but they’re actually the ones who started the snow-sculpting event in 1985.
“This event is very dear to our hearts,” said 54-year-old Jeff Hunter, the president of the Imperial Order of Fire & Brimstone, the fraternal organization of past Vulcan Krewe members. “We’d just hate to see it go away.”
Hunter said the Vulcans made the decision Monday night to save the competition by finding ways to cut costs and raise money.
That meant finding free snow and cheap land where they could hold the event.
That brought them to the Fairgrounds. Hunter said the area has enough pristine snow to let them avoid using expensive snow-making machines. And fees for the land will be much cheaper than those downtown, he said.
They expect to scrape up 10,000 square feet of clean snow, enough to produce 15 to 17 blocks measuring 8 feet on a side, Hunter said.
About 70 former Vulcans will donate their muscle and equipment to scoop the snow this weekend and stuff it into large wooden molds. Hunter said it’s “a complicated piece of engineering” and a daylong process.
Carnival officials are scrambling to notify sculptors that the show is back on, and Hunter said they’ve been able to get most of the sculptors back.
In one big weekend push, each of the 15 or so threemember teams will have from 9 a.m. Jan. 25 to 11:30 a.m. Jan. 27 to transform a block of snow into art.
Independent professional judges will start critiquing one hour after the end of the sculpting period. An awards ceremony will follow at 1:30 pm., and the top three winners will receive prize money.
One question remains, though: Why did the Vulcs get involved in a snow event, anyway?
“Snow melts faster than ice,” Hunter said. “And that’s what Vulcans like.”
Alex Friedrich can be reached at afriedrich@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2109.
Copyright 2008 Pioneer Press.
