Fun With Snow Puts Storms Aside
Good turnout at first Family Winterfest bodes well for Brewer's waterfront

Recent storms aside, you can have a lot of fun mixing snow and water these days - especially if you add heavy doses of creativity and color.

As part of Brewer's first Family Winterfest on Saturday, 14 teams of people used the abundance of snow as well as spray paint and props to create snow sculptures. The results were impressive representations of pastimes and people, icons and igloos.

It added bright colors to the monochromatic landscape of winter.

The festival is part of the city's effort to promote its waterfront and this year featured three detailed ice sculptures by Steve Griffith of the University of New Hampshire. The sculptures of an anchor, snowflake and a ship's helm are outside the Muddy Rudder Restaurant, on the edge of the parking lot toward the Penobscot River.

They will be lighted at night.

Up the street Saturday, snow was being carved with equal vigor.

Staking out sections of Doyle Field, competitors gathered snow, rolled it, packed it, shaping and reshaping it. The sculptures included a massive re-creation of Mount Katahdin, Winnie the Pooh, a benched Pepsi-swigging basketball player, and a huge basketball and net that recognized the high school basketball tournament going on across the river this weekend at Bangor Auditorium.

The $500 top prize is what drew Scott Sherman, Austin Smith, both 15, and Justine Smith, 16, all from Bangor. They had done some planning the night before, coming up with rough outlines of what they wanted to do.

Come Saturday, plans changed.

They initially thought of making a sleek Corvette, but with the pink paint they had available they opted for a modified pink Cadillac. It started out as blocks of snow, packed tight into rectangular recycling bins. Early onlookers mistook their creation for a fort or castle.

Gradually the three chiseled the box into a swoopy design, carving out a two-seat interior, windshield and mirror. More snow was added in the back and sculpted into fins. Then came the finishing touches, pink paint - yellow for the headlights and taillights - and a cushy blue interior that included such extras as a real-life car cell phone.

Such attention to detail and ingenuity is what helped them outdo their competitors, getting what they had come here for: the top prize.

With a requirement that each group have at least one member under the age of 18, the snow creation competition encouraged families to participate.

Across the field from the Cadillac, Geoff and Deedra Dapice of Brewer and their family were busy putting together their "winter wonderland," which won them an honorable mention and a $50 prize. Coralie, 10, Shannon, 8, and Ethan 5, practiced Friday, making a polar bear, and have been drawing upon their knowledge of making sand castles, said their nana Sally Beal.

Their snow scenic included an igloo, a seal peering out from a circular break in the ice, and an out-of-place penguin sliding flippers first into the water while a snowman looks on.

"It's kind of nice to sit back and just enjoy and do something as a family," said their father, Geoff, who did very little sitting back. Invariably, it was his job to haul the buckets of water from across the field. A large snowball he rolled elsewhere took both hands to carry.

Collin Popper, 11, and mother Bonnie of Bangor were obviously thinking of warmer times when they created a raised sculpture of a buff man who is face down on the sand, trying to get some sun. Collin called him "No Tan Dan" and, with about 90 minutes still to go, waited for flesh-colored paint to add at least some color to his pasty white sculpture. It never came, so No Tan Dan remained with no color, no clothes and, in light of the recent weather, no chance of a tan.

Getting people out enjoying themselves and bringing people together is what it was all about, said Willow McVeigh, one of the event's organizers, as she plodded through the snow, checking the progress of each snow sculpture and gauging participation and cooperation of each group.

The Penobscot Landing advisory committee organized the affair and raised nearly $6,000 for this year's event. Committee members said they hope to expand it in future years, perhaps having the Winterfest serve as a nationally sanctioned ice-sculpting event.

McVeigh said next year they might set up piles of snow in advance and have more water on hand to make it easier for the snow sculptors.

"If I do this next year, I'm bringing snowshoes," McVeigh said.

A copyright story from the Bangor Daily News by Doug Kesseli, Of the NEWS Staff: Monday, February 24, 2003.