Ice Sculptures

Large and smaller ice sculptures are carved in advance of Winterlude out in the open in Confederation Park, and usually one of them will be one like this, with the name of the festival in English and French.

This is another one of the large ice sculptures out in the open air, erected on behalf of the Museum of Nature, depicting a butterfly.

I showed you some days back another ice sculpture of a horse and rider in a harness race set. This wall is beside it, encasing images in the ice. In 1979, there were harness races on the ice of the Rideau Canal during the first Winterlude, a nod back to the 19th century, when harness racing was done on the Canal's frozen surface. A period photograph of the race is on the left, while on the right, some of the riders are shown with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his sons at the time. Our current PM, Justin Trudeau, was seven at the time, and is the oldest of the three boys. I wonder if that image came from the PM himself.

Here are some of the smaller ice sculptures, each carved with a bench or a sitting place, ideal for photo ops, especially at night when they're lit up.