In 1939, a 37-foot-tall version of College founder Eleazar Wheelock, the College's founder, towered over the Green, proudly wielding a 15-gallon beer mug. Sixty-five years later, students commemorated the 100th birthday of Theodore Geisel '25 by perching his Cat in the Hat atop a giant snow hat. Since its inception in 1925, the Winter Carnival snow sculpture on the Green has often drawn inspiration from the College's storied history, showcasing student sculptors' imaginative, ambitious and even world record-breaking efforts.
The College's former mascot, the controversial Dartmouth Indian, was the model for Winter Carnival sculptors on several occasions. The 1940 sculpture "Starshooter", a 40-foot Native American firing an arrow toward the sky, broke previous height records. In 1957, students built a 50-foot-tall Native American emerging from icy flames. The sculpture, "Fire and Ice", was inspired by a poem of the same name by Robert Frost, who enrolled with the Class of 1896.
The Guinness Book of World Records recognized a 47.5-foot-tall, Mardi Gras-themed snowman as one of the tallest snowmen ever constructed. The snowman was the centerpiece of the 1987 Carnival.
Sculpture success has not always come easily, however. In 1989, the sculpture was cancelled for the first time due to a lack of snow. The stegosaurus built for the 1996 Carnival melted, and the next year, the sculpture of a knight riding a horse collapsed and was converted to a knight's funeral. Last year's replica of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge collapsed and was rebuilt as the two peaks of Mount Moosilauke.
The tradition of trucking in snow from an outside source due to inadequate snowfall goes back to at least 1938. That year, a professor's wife sold snow from her front lawn to builders to compensate for the snow shortage.
In 1980, the near absence of snow and the projected cost of snow-making equipment led the College to decide that in such a "period of intense budget austerity...there could be no extra budget for a snow symbol," the Valley News reported on Jan. 29, 1980.
To prevent Winter Carnival from occurring without a sculpture, the College's neighbors volunteered to help. Killington ski resort provided a snow maker and three local suppliers Eaton Oil, Johnson and Dix, and an anonymous donor provided diesel fuel to power the machine, the Valley News reported.
"The Mack Truck Co. of Secaucus, N.J., set up a demonstrator fire pumper to provide water pressure for the snow gun compressor," the Valley News reported.
To ensure that Carnival festivities would continue as usual, Carnival organizers reduced the size of the sculpture and recycled the leftover snow in the construction of the ski jumps and the cross country ski course.
Other sculptures were frustratingly resilient. The 1955 sculpture of Nanook the Eskimo astride a whale refused to melt on its own and was destroyed with dynamite in the spring.
In a 1969 letter to College administrators, student builders asked for the faculty's help with constructing the sculpture, promising beer, hot chocolate and good company to any professor who volunteered.
"The Center of Campus Snow Sculpture is, as usual, behind schedule due to problems of student labor, organization of the work, and certain distractions such as studies and women!" the letter said.
Since the sculpture's inception as Winter Carnival's centerpiece, its planning and building process has always begun with the Carnival committee's selection of a Dartmouth student's design. Once the College approves the design represented by a clay model an estimated 2,000 man-hours go into constructing the sculpture.
