Ice carvers from across the Atlantic Canada and beyond have gathered since 2019 to share their sculpting skills at the Downtown Dartmouth Ice Festival. Originally featuring a handful of artists, this year’s festival, running from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, will showcase 10 artists and dozens of their creations with a lineup including Mi’kmaw artist Gordon Sparks, Chef Richard Chiasson, and logger Liam Tromans.
Tromans started carving as a workplace diversion, discovering ice as an artistic medium about a decade ago. Toss in axe-throwing and world champion log roller Darren Hudson and one has some idea of the crew that make up the ice carving community. The festival also features, “a street party, music and an indoor winter wonderland with activities for children” along with “DJs, street curling, and activities for all ages,” says Tim Rissesco, CEO of the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission.
In the world of East Coast ice carving, all roads lead from the Acadian peninsula and Ice Creation Glace in Caraquet, N.B., which makes the ice for carving. Massive Clinebell directional freezing machines produce the carvers’ crystal-clear blocks: 50 centimetres by 100 centimetres by 25 centimetres, weighing 135 kilograms. Customized ice bandsaws cut the blocks into manageable dimensions.
Along with blocks, Richard Chiasson and the team at Ice Creation Glace offer a range of pieces including “bowls, sculptures, food presentation pieces, ice wine, or cocktail fountains, even full ice bars,” plus bespoke designs for all occasions and events. They also offer weekend workshops for budding ice sculptors.
Chiasson has carved ice for 45+ years. On New Years Eve 1979, he found himself deploying his experience with sculpting chocolate on a new material, and the stakes were high. On a moment’s notice, he was ordered to produce an ice sculpture for the night’s celebration at the renowned Keltic Lodge on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island. With that experience, a product of employment and expediency, Chiasson was “bit by ice.” His relentless pursuit of this passion and willingness to share his skills has earned him a variety of respectful handles including Ice King and Top Dog.
Clichés feature sculptors in berets and smocks working in cluttered studios flooded with natural light. Nothing is further from the truth for ice carvers. The delicate ribs and trimming tools that clay sculptors employ are nowhere to be seen, displaced by chainsaws, grinders, and propane torches. Under Maritime winter skies, they work in insulated coveralls and Kevlar chaps, with ear protection like bush workers.
Chainsaws are dangerous and ice carving with a chainsaw is hazardous. Or, as the website icesculptingsecrets.com puts it, “A cold, sharp, and delicate medium combined with often extreme work conditions and speedy material removal? And maybe electricity + water too? Yes, that sounds dangerous.” Made more so, as one anonymous artist on the site puts it because carving with a chainsaw involves learning how to use a chainsaw properly, and then how to misuse it safely. On the flip side, that means it is an artistic pursuit that carries a large “do not try this at home” warning.
Liam Tromans started chainsaw carving 20 years ago as a diversion during downtime after logging for many years. His experience in the woods meant he was experienced and comfortable with a chainsaw long before he started carving. Since then, he’s participated in carving events, shows and competitions across Canada and internationally. Currently based in the Amherst area of Nova Scotia, his subjects highlight animals including, eagle, bears, and portraits of beloved pets.
“I love carving” he says.
He began ice art about nine years ago. “I remember having a 5-gallon bucket that had filled with rainwater, and froze solid after a cold snap. It was crystal clear, and I thought I should try carving it, so I grabbed my chainsaw and carved an eagle. I liked how it came out, so I set out some more buckets and carved probably four or five more pieces that winter.”
Unlike Tromans, Rob Milner’s introduction to chainsaw carving arose not from experience with a chainsaw, but aversion to the tool. Milner, of Eternity Chainsaw Carvings in Liverpool, N.S., discovered the art form bouncing back from a string of personal and professional challenges that found him overcoming his antipathy to chainsaws when an aversion to rising heating costs led him to cutting rounds and chopping firewood. The mundane experience morphed into pleasure wielding the bar of a chainsaw, “with carving wood, I found the first thing in my life I wanted to do forever.” Then, 15 years ago he discovered ice, “My first ice sculpting in Riverview, N.B., was eye-opening and the new-to-me medium was faster and more exciting than wood. I saw the potential in what it would let me do.”
Axe throwing, world champion log roller Darren Hudson is, at the risk of mixing metaphors, a Renaissance man of all things timber related. A fifth-generation logger, seven-time champion log roller, proprietor of the Timber Lounge and board member of the Global Axe Throwing Commission he will even teach you to be a logger for a day at the Wild Axe Lumberjack Axeperience in Barrington, N.S. Chainsaw carving is of many endeavours.
Joel (Swamp Bear) Palmer has spent most of his life in the bush, “dogsled guiding in the mountains, canoeing instructing in northern Saskatchewan, zip-line guiding on the B.C. coast, snowboard instructing from Newfoundland to Alberta, working fishing boats of the Pacific Ocean.” His carving career includes an appearance on the Discovery TV series, A Cut Above. His work ranges from public commissions to guitar-wielding fish.
Gordon Sparks is a Mi’kmaw artist raised on the Pabineau First Nation in northeastern New Brunswic. He’s a mask maker, tattooist, and carver. His mentor was master mask-carver Ned Bear, of Wolastoqey and Plains Cree descent. He’s the only ice carver at the festival to not use power. “My work as a Mi’kmaw artist represents tradition for the Mi'kmaw people, to guarantee the preservation of traditional values, new and old ceremonies, oral storytelling, and the gathering of people to share in life stories together,” says his online bio. He started sculpting snow before carving ice, but traditional hand-carved wooden masks remain at the core of his creative journey.
Chandana Kapila, Matt Nuqingaq, and Claude Rousell — they snow sculpted together 15 years ago — and multimedia creator Patrick Brunet round out this remarkable, pleasantly eccentric crew. Their paths to ice carving are many and varied and their incredibly detailed creations make the Downtown Dartmouth Ice Festival a must-see.