A second event of the 2012 St. Paul Winter Carnival has been canceled as organizers face a snowless Minnesota landscape.

The sled dog race slated for Jan. 28 and 29 on White Bear Lake was nixed by race coordinators Sunday due to the lack of snow and unsafe ice conditions. The weekend of racing would have been the first on the lake since the event was last held in 1994.

Sally O’Sullivan Bair, a member of the race-organizing North Star Sled Dog Club, said no snow on the ice means “no traction, no trail for the dogs to follow and your sled is just slipping around and you can’t stop in an emergency. We just wouldn’t want to do that.”

The dearth of precipitation also led to the announcement Friday that the Vulcans’ snow-sculpting competition on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds was canceled.

But Winter Carnival organizers said not to worry about the weather putting a further damper on the festivities Jan. 26 to Feb. 5 – the rest of the carnival will go on as planned, with a cool-down expected over the next couple of weeks.

“We’re disappointed, but it’s the elements,” said Beth Pinkney, head of the Saint Paul Festival & Heritage Foundation.

And plenty of cold will be needed as crews start Tuesday to assemble a giant ice wall in Rice Park, Pinkney said. The 125-foot-long wall will depict the carnival’s 126 years.

And everybody else appears to be making do:

— The North Star Sled Dog Club will still hold a racing demonstration behind the Keep-Zimmer VFW Post 1782 from noon to 3 or 4 p.m. Jan. 28, in lieu of a weekend of racing.

— The Vulcans will wrangle enough snow to build one block for carving in Rice Park this weekend. Last year’s contest winner, St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune, will be sculpting.

— Snow will be dumped on West Fourth Street, in front of the St. Paul Central Library, for the Autonomous Snowplow Competition, which features robotic, self-propelled snowplows.

For O’Sullivan Bair, it appears to be either feast or famine for the sled dog competition during carnival, she said.

“The temperature never got above minus 15 degrees in 1994, she said.

“It was windy, it was snowy, it was cold.”

John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.

Copyright 2012 Pioneer Press.