An ice carving on display in Confederation Park’s Crystal Gardens for this year’s Winterlude.
The Bytown Museum is hosting its first ice carving demonstration and practice for visitors on Feb. 8, a new way for the Centretown local history centre to participate in Winterlude.
With the expertise of carvers from the Canadian Ice Carvers’ Society, the museum hopes to engage spectators in the history of Ottawa, according to program manager Megan Bocking.
“I think anything we can do that links present day to the past helps to engage people with their history,” says Bocking. While ice sculptures are popular at Winterlude, Bocking says she thinks the Bytown demonstration will be different.
“The thing that sets us apart is that it’s about community, what our community proposed to us and what they voted on and wanted to see,” she says.
Bytown Museum uses social media – Facebook and Twitter – to involve community members in the events and history it promotes.
The museum asked its Facebook fans to email in their design ideas for the ice sculpture, and the fans voted on the top three designs: Queen Victoria, a historic streetcar or the view of Ottawa from the International Space Station.
The winning design, a historic streetcar, was the clear favourite with 83 per cent of the vote.
Bocking says she hopes the ice sculpture will connect visitors to a past they may not even realize exists.
“It’s a great way to experience Ottawa’s history . . . to get a sense of how the city has actually grown and developed,” she says.