Hi! all!
The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan's largest winter events, attracts a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad every year. Every winter, about two million people come to Sapporo to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures which line Odori Park,the grounds at Satoland, and the main street in Susukino.
The Sapporo Snow Festival first started in 1950 in Odori Park with a meager six ice sculptures crafted by local students during one of the area’s long winters. Since then, the event has grown in leaps and bounds, especially with the addition of the Self Defense Force in Makomani in 1955 and another site in Susukino. Today, over two million people worldwide travel to the festival to view these exceptional pieces of art.
There's a sculpting process:
First, a wooden structure is built. Large blocks of snow are then cut from the ground using shovels, buckets, chisels, axes, and saws made of barbed wire. The blocks are stomped into place around the wooden scaffolding and hosed down with water that freezes into hard-as-rock water mortar. Only then does the painstaking job of sculpting the masterpiece begin.
The combined result of all this carving and sculpting, usually lit up at night with coloured lights, is a spun-crystal dreamscape of fairylights and magic. The main boulevard is spangled with hundreds of statues, some as large as houses (come to think of it some are houses) and over the years the festival has showcased frosted versions of the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Pyramids of Egypt.