Probably the biggest draw to the annual Ice Art Championships—at least in number of visitors—is not the sculptures, but the Kids’ Park. Parents buy season tickets for the family and bring the kids over and over again to amuse themselves in this play area made entirely of ice. There’s a skating rink, complete with skates and hockey sticks and pucks to borrow:
the reference is to the Ice Dogs,
There are carvings of animals for the kids to climb on,
and a maze to wander through:
Check out just how clear the blocks of ice used to construct the maze are:
photo: Larry Wendell
There’s also a little “train” to ride around the park:
But by far the most popular items at the Kids’ Park are the slides:
Although the park is plenty popular during the day, it’s at night that it truly comes alive, for everything in the Kids’ Park is lit up in bright, festive colors. Here’s the maze:
And here’s the big slide at night:
The competitions all finished several weeks ago, and the park is now closed and its gates locked to prevent folks from wandering around and hurting themselves.
file under the category of “Duh!”
Since my sister Laura and brother-in-law Doug were visiting the past few days, however, we decided to ignore the closed signs and sneak in, which involved post-holing our way around a fence, down a hill, and through a grove of Black Spruce.
It’s been warm here in Fairbanks the past week—often as high as 50 degrees F—so many of the sculptures have collapsed, and those that haven’t fallen have begun to melt,
drooling in the hot sun
and to morph into weird new shapes.
The danger of collapsing ice is very real, so areas have been cordoned off.
We took Ziggy with us, but kept her on a leash to ensure she wasn’t flattened by a falling ice block.
Yesterday I got a glimpse of the park from the expressway, and could see that some of the larger multi-block sculptures are still standing. But given the warm weather forecast for the coming week, it won’t be long before it is all just one big puddle.
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