Life among the flakes
Walkabout: PI
Happenings in the Star City
“Do you wanna build a snowman?” begins the song from that popular movie.
And who doesn’t?
If you take a look around town, you’ll find some: round faces, twig arms, smiles ranging from happy to downright goofy. Snowmen take over in The County, it seems, to brighten things up when the twinkle of Christmas is packed away.
No matter our age, there is a childlike allure to taking what Mother Nature dumps on us and making something fun — not to mention getting outdoors in the fresh air. It’s kind of like thumbing your nose at winter.
When there’s fresh snow, and it reaches just the right consistency, snowmen pop up everywhere, some sporting only twigs, others wearing hats with scarves wound around their necks, and some even brightened with color on the snow.
Curiosity about how snowmen really began led to an article in the December 2014 Reader’s Digest, adapted from “ The History of the Snowman.” Author Bob Eckstein explains that snowmen were around even in the Middle Ages.
“At a time of limited means of expression, snow was like free art supplies dropped from the sky,” Eckstein writes. “Some were created by famous artists, including a 19-year-old Michelangelo, who in 1494 was commissioned by the ruler of Florence, Italy, to sculpt a snowman in his mansion’s courtyard.”
The author says there were snowmen on some of the first postcards. They appeared in silent films and were even in some of earliest photographs in the 1800s.
Maine has its own special place in snowman history: Our state holds the record for the world’s largest snowman — er, snow-woman, that is.
In 2008, in Bethel, residents joined in to create “Olympia,” named in honor of former Congresswoman Olympia Snowe. At 122.1 feet tall, the creation made the venerable Guinness Book of World Records, and is featured in YouTube videos and on the Facebook page of the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce.
The snow-woman of western Maine took a month to complete, according to Mark B. Oliver in the December 2010 issue of ONE New England. Olympia featured 16 skis for eyelashes, two 5-foot wreaths for eyes, a 16-foot-diameter fleece hat, two 30-foot spruce trees for arms and tires for buttons and her smile. Oliver said she weighed 13 million pounds.
Here in the Star City we’ve had our own giants of snow. A couple of years ago, in readiness for the 2014 IBU World Youth/Junior Biathlon Championships, the community was invited to join in the festivities by creating snow sculptures on the theme “Welcome the World.”
The Star-Herald reported on March 12, 2015, that the Galipeau family of Presque Isle took top honors with their expansive sculpture featuring skiing snow figures and flags of participating nations. Piper and Sierra Galipeau were in the fourth grade at Zippel Elementary School, and had begun learning about the upcoming biathlon; they and parents Scott and Christa Galipeau, along with the girls’ friend Maddie Jackson, created a colorful homage to the cultures and countries represented by the athletes.
Second place was awarded to Presque Isle Housing Authority for a giant recreation of the earth adorned with international flags. Katahdin Trust Company took third place for its patriotic snowman outside its Presque Isle location, but elected to pass it down to the fourth-place entry, the Ellis family’s “Snowman with a Globe Head.”
That same year, a giant snowman graced the entrance to The Aroostook Medical Center, created as part of the hospital’s winter carnival festivities by the maintenance staff. The group had first achieved snow sculpture fame in 2012 with their arresting 20-foot snowman, but 2014’s version reached 25 feet, complete with a traffic-cone nose.
And along about April 1, when winter had become really old, and Mother Nature kept dumping more snow, the staff gave passers-by a real April Fool. Folks did a double-take to realize that Frosty had turned into … Peter Rabbit! Savvy snow sculptors had transformed the top hat into long ears, the snowman head into a bunny face, and its round base into two long bunny feet — with, of course, a “cottontail” at the back.
Take that, winter! We’ll celebrate spring despite the snow.
The how-tos have been handed down till we can’t remember when we first heard them: Start with a small snowball. Roll it up big. Pack it well. Start a second snowball and make it a bit smaller than the first. Add the head — and then, add the personality: Twigs, stones, coal, scarves, whatever there is to work with.
Of course you wanna build one.
