It’s been about a week since the 2019 Boardwalk Ice On Whyte Festival ended so we thought we’d give you a little recap of just what happens at the festival.

This year the festival ran from January 24 - February 3. There are many different events and activities throughout the festival, but Ice sculptures created by artists from around the world are the star of the show.

This year we followed the sculpting process right from the beginning. It starts with a giant truckload of ice. Each contestant/team gets one skid of ice blocks and has only a few days to sculpt their creations. I was pretty surprised to see these blocks arrive in cardboard boxes.

It was very cool to see these artists sculpt their masterpieces. We visited them on day one and they already had quite a jump on the process. When we returned a few days later on the morning of the awards the teams were putting the finishing touches on the sculptures. I couldn’t believe that these things started out as blocks of ice in boxes!!

Team Sakha from the Republic of Sakha in Russia won the competition for their sculpture titled Happy Childhood. Take a look at the teams getting their pieces ready:

Here’s a look at the finished works of art:

Aside from the ice carving competition, there were plenty of other things to experience at the festival. There was the Big Chippers (for adults) and L’il Chippers (for kids) ice carving classes, a giant outdoor crokinole game, a Pride Night, and a very cool bar area that featured the bar that was also made entirely out of ice!!

Here’s a look at some of the activities:

Wrapping up the festival was the Beer Stew Off that was held at Situation Brewing. The teams had to use local ingredients and beer in their dishes. They were all delicious!!!

It was a lot of fun photographing this festival. We experienced temperatures as high as +8 and as low as -45 with the wind chill. We want to thank Wanda, Courtney, and Jill from the festival for being so fantastic to work with!!! Hope to see you again next year!