Extraordinary Ice Storm Headed for St. Joseph!
Attention all families living or traveling to Southwest Michigan: A massive winter storm is predicted to hit downtown St. Joseph the weekend of February 10th. Forecasters are calling for three unforgettable days of winter madness as colossal, 300-pound blocks of ice descend upon city sidewalks.
OR . . . it could be the 8th Annual Magical Ice Carving Festival. Should Lakeside FAMILY’s unofficial (and untrained) weatherman be wrong, this is one ice storm you actually want to get caught in! Don’t take our word for it; listen to Brian Smith, events manager for St. Joe Today.
“This festival has something for everyone and is completely family-oriented,” explained Smith, whose favorite part of the weekend is the professional ice carvers who come from across the Midwest including South Carolina and Texas to compete. “Watching how they manipulate the ice using a variety of chain saws and power tools and then fuse sections of ice together is amazing.”
According to Smith, most of the carvers have a culinary background and are active members of the Michiana Ice Carvers Association. While the act of sculpting ice into art may sound easy, it takes years of challenging instruction and practice to achieve each dynamic frozen creation. In fact, the St. Joseph competition is sanctioned by a global organization called the National Ice Carving Association (NICA) based in the United States. NICA promotes the art of ice sculpture and carving, provides guidelines for judging, offers learning seminars, and organizes ice-carving competitions around the globe. Today, NICA boasts more than 400 members, some of the best in the world.
One such member happens to be Mark Smith, beverage director and executive chef at the restaurant at Harbor Shores. Chef Smith helped bring the ice carving festival to St. Joseph in 2004 under the leadership of Joen Brambilla, past director of St. Joe Today. While Chef Smith continues to master his own carving skills, he will serve as lead judge for this event and help to award multiple cash prizes to the best teams and individual carvers.
“We have an estimated 25 competitors headed to our town this year,” stated Brian Smith, “Each team or individual carver must submit a design of what their finished ice sculpture will look like along with their application in order to be eligible to compete. Everything is judged on a point system that the carvers are collecting as they travel from competition to competition around the country, so it’s a big deal.”
While a host of delicious food, kid shows, and great music are in the weekend line-up, the dramatic ice show takes center stage beginning with the professional team carving competition on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. along State Street. People of all ages will marvel as 10 teams are given just five hours to transform four giant blocks of average ice into spectacular works of art. The professional individual carving competition will take place on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the corner of Pleasant and State Street.
Winning designs for past sculptures have embodied everything from mythical dragons bearing razor-sharp teeth and breathing fire to graceful underwater sea creatures swimming through coral caverns. Attendees can find out if their favorite artist won by attending the awards ceremony for the top six teams and the best individual carvers on Sunday at 3 p.m. (location TBD).
Another enchanting layer of fun to the weekend is called the Snow Biz Scavenger Hunt that enables dozens of festival sponsors to participate in the flurry of excitement. Each company sponsor will be represented by a glistening logo ice sculpture containing special items buried deep inside, but visible through the ice.
“We’ll plant these logo sculptures throughout the downtown area for kids and their friends and family to try to locate and identify all the crazy things hidden inside,” explained Smith, who added that scavenger hunt participants should first come to the Welcome Center at 421 State Street to pick up a game map. The 2012 presenting sponsors are Harbor Town Interiors, Indiana Michigan Power, and the Berrien Community Foundation.
Conveniently staged a snowball’s throw from all the action will be Schu’s Festival Tent at the corner of Pleasant and Lake Boulevard. Guests can shake off the chill with a plate of something delicious and a cup of warm spirits thanks to Larry Schuler’s inviting festival menu, which happens to include live music all day Friday and Saturday night.
Should Mother Nature care to crash the town’s icy celebration and surprise us all with a true winter storm – game on! As long as the temps range in the mid-20s and the sun stays south, come festival weekend every ice carver in the world will wish he were here!
All dates and activities are weather permitting and subject to change. For a complete, updated schedule to the 8th Annual Magical Ice Carving Festival, please visit sjtoday.org.
