Steve Lukshin had been carving snow in the cold for 12 hours.
Discomfort is only relative, he said. He’d be fine.
He scraped texture into the hair of his Statue of Liberty sculpture using a chunk of plywood with some metal truss nailed onto it.
“What gets me is the fingers,” he said. “All the detail work right now, you stop moving, and then it gets cold.”
It was 10 p.m. Saturday and minus five degrees. Lukshin was one of a handful of snow sculptors still working away under the glare of generator-powered lights. For nearly a week they had been carving what were originally 8-foot-square cubes of snow harvested from sports fields, trucked to the sculpture site and then snow blown at high force into a mold. It’s part of a decades-long tradition during Anchorage’s Fur Rondy, a festival that also includes sled dogs, ice bowling, a fur auction and outhouse races.
Lukshin was planning to keep at it all the way through the night until the 10 a.m. deadline.
“Sleep!?” he said, laughing. “Funny girl! Negative.”
It was cold, but he was prepared, with two pairs of socks, two pairs of long johns, snow pants, rain pants, three coats and a thermos of hot water. Hand tools were piled off to the side. No power tools allowed.
Lukshin said he regularly frequents thrift stores, looking for things that might be good for carving or hacking or scraping.
“There's no such thing as a snow carving tool,” he said, picking up a circular metal scraper. “This here will actually smooth. It'll make it really, really nice and smooth.”
It was a curry comb, normally used to clean horses. His kit also includes a metal pizza paddle and a cheese grater.
When he entered this competition for the first time on a whim, the only tool he had was a plastic shovel. That was 15 years ago. He’s not an artist and it was a real learning experience, he said.
“You just learn from mistakes. That's all,” he said. “You just kind of go from the outside in, that's it, and somehow you, you find a line, and next thing you know, you got a knuckle, or you got a wing, or you have a fin.”
He loves talking to people as they come through, watching him work in the week leading up to the competition. He loves the stories, the questions, the connections with people from all over the world.
Lukshin said he’s always thinking of sculpture ideas. Like the Statue of Liberty, which is something he’s wanted to try for a while. He thinks the snow torch is hilarious. It’s also a little complicated. It stands way higher than the original 8-foot block of snow. So Lukshin had to stack extra snow blocks up to get the height, freezing them in place with a slurry of snow and water.
“One of those fell last night and I almost lost the torch,” he said. “That would have been bad.”
Just across from Lukshin, Tyler Best was working with friends on a piece inspired by a scene in the comic "Calvin and Hobbes", where Calvin’s dad comes home and bemoans his son’s morbid creativity.
“Calvin has a very vivid imagination,” Best said. “He has created some very monstrous snow sculptures.”
A sprawling sea monster picks up snowmen, looks of terror on their snow faces.
Best chose the design both out of affection for the comic, and because it’s difficult. There’s one big snowman wrapped in an octopus tentacle high in the air, about to be devoured by the monster. Best estimates it weighs over 200 lbs. It had some extra support, but that would be gone by the deadline.
“I still have that supporting structure holding it up until probably the last minute tomorrow morning,” he said. “Sometime around 8 or so, I'll probably cut that loose.”
It would be risky.
“But that's kind of what this whole thing is about,” he said. “Every year I try to do something a little more difficult, a little harder.”
The challenge is part of the fun.
Although maybe fun is the wrong word.
“You hate every minute of it,” he said. “And then as soon as you're done, you're proud of what you've done, and you can't wait to do it again.”
He gets a lot of fulfillment out of doing a thing that should be impossible, he said.
After the 10 a.m. deadline Sunday morning, Best’s 200 lb. snowman dangled from a tentacle, unsupported. Best is tired but smiling. It turns out it was possible.
The Fur Rondy snow sculptures are open to the public in Anchorage on Ship Creek Avenue, just below the Rondy Carnival through March 8th.
