Sculpture downsized for 2010
After last year’s Winter Carnival snow sculpture collapsed, student organizers designed this year’s to be significantly smaller.
By Emily Fletcher, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Friday, January 29, 2010
After the Winter Carnival snow sculpture replica of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge collapsed last year, the 2010 Winter Carnival committee is attempting a less ambitious project this year, snow sculpture construction chair Richie Clark ’11 said. The sculpture, a model of the Roman Colosseum, will be one-quarter to one-third smaller than last year’s sculpture, he said.
Clark said that builders plan to make the sculpture 15 feet tall, although it may only reach 12 to 13 feet. Last year’s sculpture was 19 feet at its highest point before it succumbed to warm weather and rain before Winter Carnival began, Clark said.
This year’s sculpture design, in line with the Carnival theme “I Came, I Saw, I Carnivaled,” will also have a smaller foundation than last year’s, he said.
Last year’s sculpture incorporated an extensive wood frame within the walls to hold the roof up, but this year’s sculpture will not use any wood in the structure, Clark said.
“We have scaled down significantly,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we could get in a project that we could actually build on time.”
Although the rain and higher temperatures early in the week made working unpleasant, there was no lasting effect on the snow sculpture itself, according to senior class snow sculpture chair Benjy Meigs ’10.
“It’s not fun to be out there trying to drain water away from the base,” he said.
The rain did not hinder construction because water must be added to the snow during the building process, Meigs said. However, fresh snowfall “makes the Green prettier” and helps boost student morale, he said.
Both Meigs and Clark emphasized that more student volunteers are needed to complete the sculpture on schedule.
“This year’s sculpture isn’t progressing as quickly as it should because there’s less participation from campus organizations as in years past,” Clark said.
Members of Greek organizations and sports teams usually constitute the largest portion of sculpture volunteers, Meigs said.
“The snow sculpture is a really important tradition,” Meigs said. “We really need the student volunteers to come out.”
Trucks have been delivering snow from Campion Ice Skating Rink in Lebanon to the Green to help complete the sculpture, Meigs said. The rink does not charge the team for the snow, while the cost of transporting the snow is built into the budget of the sculpture each year, he said.
Last year was the first year in recent memory that snow did not have to be delivered from an outside source, according to Meigs.
“Imported snow really works better for our purposes,” he said.
The builders have so far received one shipment of snow, Clark said, and originally expected to receive a second Thursday before a miscommunication with employees at Campion caused a delay in the delivery. Volunteers hope to receive the snow Friday, he said.
The 1996 and 1997 Winter Carnival sculptures, which portrayed a knight riding on a horse and a stegosaurus, respectively, also collapsed, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Winter Carnival will take place Feb. 11-14 this year.