'Snow is our passion': Carvers get busy at international competition in Yukon

Whitehorse has not had the snowiest winterand it shows in the big blocks assembled for this week's snow-carving competition at least, tolocal carver Don Watt's expert eye.

"It's a little dirty, because it was hard to find snow," he said.

Not a big deal, though. Watt says the snow is good and the brisk temperatures this week areideal for carving"not sloppy," he says.

The annual competition, a highlight of the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous, typically draws teams of expert carvers from around the world. This year there are nine teams, from as far away as Austria, Japan, and Mexico.

Yep Mexican snow carvers.

"Really, really amazing to be here, with this cold," said Pablo David Elias, of the Mexican team.

"This feeling of cold, this weather, is kind of an adventure that you can never experience in Mexico. Like somebody from here can go through the coast and take sun, and take a bath in the warm waters of the sea it's the same experience, I think."

Back home, Elias isan architect, painter and sculptor. He got into snow carving about 10 years ago. Since then, Eliashas travelled with his team to competitions around the world.

"We decided that snow is our passion," he said.

Daniel Hlzl,from Team Austria, has also travelled a lot with his carving tools. He studies art in Berlin and says his team is working on an "abstract piece" this year.

"Lots of triangles and stuff," he said. "Break-through stuff, like you can look through the whole sculpture. That's right now hard to imagine, but you will see."

The winning snow sculpture is voted on by the public andwill be announced on Saturday afternoon at Shipyards Park.

Remembering Mike Lane

For Don Watt, this year's competition is bittersweet. He's doing what he lovesbut without his longtime friend and fellow carver, Mike Lane, who died earlier this year.

• Yukon snow carvers mourn Mike Lane, 'our tool guy'

Watt and the Yukon team are makingwhat Watt says was Lane's favourite piece a re-creationof the famous scene in A Christmas Story when a bully takes a dare and sticks his tongue to a frozenlamp post.

They're also making a "memorial sculpture" of Lane's face "the big moustache, and his big curly hair, etcetera," Watt said and inviting the public to help them with the carving.

"It's sort of a tough year for me, but one that we're getting through," he said. "It's getting easier."

Watt says he tries to remember what another carving friend from the N.W.T. told him after hearing Lane had died.

"Joe said he was sorry to hear Mike's 'carving on the other side of the block.' So that's it Mike has just gone around the corner, to the other side of the block. He's still there in our hearts."