Forget Frosty, meet Smiley: Regina man builds 11-foot snowman

A Regina man has built an eleven-foot tall, 1,000-pound snowman named Smiley using a technique he learned from his father.

Roger Payot built the snowman's body using bottomless cardboard boxes filled with snow.

He letthe boxes set individually overnight then stackedthem one-by-one on top of each other to form a solid pillar.

Using just a pocketknife to createSmiley's head, Payot carved away the excess snow to reveal the snowman inside.

Family tradition

He said his father used to build the snowmen about 10 years ago at his home in Whitewood, Sask., about 140 kilometres east of Regina.

"He didn't carve them afterwards, he just left them as a column and put the decorations that he had made out of various things around the yard," he said.

With a lot of help from his children, Payot gave the snowman a smile of Styrofoam spheres and a cereal box crafted to look like a carrot.

He built Smiley during a period of deep freeze in central Saskatchewan last week, and expects the snowman might not make it through this week's warm spell.

But Payot already has plans for another holiday sculpture to brighten his street.

"I think I might build an evergreen next year, a Christmas tree," said Payot.