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 overwhelming favourite with 83 per cent of the vote. Facebook fans have been enthusiastic about the event, sharing the event page with their friends and encouraging others to attend.
The CICS’s Kenny Hayden, one of the artists working on the demonstration at the museum, says he thinks ice carving intrigues Canadians on many different levels.
“They’re attracted by the ice, first of all, and then the ability of somebody to take a big block of ice and carve it into a beautiful sculpture,” says Hayden.
A chef by profession, Hayden says he became interested in ice carving after a friend suggested he take his culinary art skills outdoors.
“First of all I was intrigued by the beauty of it, and then I got hooked by being outside and working and creating,” explains Hayden. He says he thinks ice carving is a special way of allowing people to interact with the history of Ottawa, since the scale and construction of the artwork is far bigger than other mediums.
Winterlude, now in its 36th year, brings in crowds of more than 600,000 people each winter, according to the federal Department of Canadian Heritage. Ice carving is one of the major events, drawing visitors to Confederation Park throughout the festival.
Denise Leblanc, communications adviser with Canadian Heritage, says ice carvings hold such a special place in Winterlude because of their temporary nature.
“It’s just something neat to experience . . . you’re part of something that’s just here for a little while, so it makes it that much more special,” she says.
The streets of Ottawa were ruled by streetcars – first horse-drawn, then electric – from the late 1800s until 1959. Centered in the downtown core and running routes to Hull, the tracks expanded into neighbourhoods such as the Glebe and Old Ottawa South. Eventually, the system became too expensive and the cars were replaced with diesel buses.
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.
Visitors are invited to try their hand at carving soap and sugar after the demonstration, a move Hayden hopes will get more people interested in the art of sculpting.
“Carving is carving,” he says. “I do many mediums. I carve salt, fruits, vegetables, even cheese.”