Carving out a good time: Despite frigid temps, Glenelm residents come out for 1st-ever snow sculpture contest

It may have been30 C with the wind chill, but that didn't stop a few hardy souls from participating in their neighbourhood's first-ever snow sculpture contest.

About a dozen people registered for theGlenelmSnow Sculpture Contest, and the goal wasn't to find the best sculptor in the neighbourhood, said organizer MichelDurand-Wood.

"We're a really fun neighbourhood with a lot of front porches so a lot of people interact a lot, and know each other," said Durand-Wood.

"But we found that in the wintertime, that tended to slow down quite a bit people tend to hunker down in their house and you don't see people till spring. So we decided maybe we should try to figure out a winter activity that might work."

After a conversation with his brother, Roger Durand, along with the co-operation of the newly re-formed Glenelm Neighbourhood Association,the idea for the sculpture contestwas born in the neighbourhood, west of Elmwood and nestled along the Red River.

"There [have been]a lot of firsts in the past year, and this is the first real big winter activity and people are pretty excited about it."

Participants registered for the free event starting in mid-January, said Durand-Wood, and had a few weeks to carve their creation. The only rule: no rules.

"We wanted it to be as accessible as possible to everybody so we left it basically [with] no rulesmake something out of snow/ice and you qualify."

Some of the sculptures included snowy owls, a peacock bedecked with ice jewels, and Durand-Wood's own contribution to the festivities: abirthday cake with coloured candles.

Three local artists were tapped as judges, said Durand-Wood, and they were to pick their three favourites to win a prize pack from local businesses.

Roger Durandsaid thecold didn't deter him from participating. Hiscontribution was a snowy plinth with an anchor, rope and seagull.

"The biggest challenge was I've never sculpted before, so just finding how to cut the snow, to get the form I want, especially the three different objects with the anchor and the rope here, I didn't know exactly where to cut," said Durand. "So I took my time just to make sure I cut the right spots."

The judgespicked their winners on Saturday the peacock sculpture, Durand's anchor, and one that featured what the judges figured was a Pokemon.

But there weren't any losers, since Durand-Wood said the contest had the intended effect.

"The real goal is just to get people outside and talking to each other and interacting in winter and that's really happened," he said.

"Alot of the people, even the ones that aren't participating,just as people are sculpting they've come out and said, 'Ohwow, that looks great,' and they're stopping by. Itjust gets people talking and it's real exciting."