Snow sculptures bookend the town for Jasper in January

Community members have been stomping snow at the west and east ends of town helping to create large snow sculptures as part of Jasper in January celebrations, over the past couple of weeks.  

It was the French association in town that initially took to carving these sculptures almost 20 years ago.  

The process for these reduction sculptures begins with wooden forms.  This year, the owner of Jasper Cement filled his loader with fresh snow from Wapiti Campground and trucked it out to the sites, said Charles Henzler, who did the carving.  

The wooden forms were filled with the fresh snow by a team of volunteers and then stomped down.  This is the “work part” said Henzler.  The “fun part” is the carving, he said.  

Jasper Tourism and Commerce created the slogan “J in J,” but Henzler came up with the actual design for the snow.  It took a while to create a workable and desirable design, said Henzler, noting that he “probably had about half a dozen designs” to work from.  

Henzler’s been carving these snow sculptures for about 15 years and snow, he said, “is a beautiful medium to work in, except when you get a lot of elk poop in it and rocks and things like that.”  

A good set of carving tools is required and Henzler uses a steel shovel, sod cutter, carving knives and a sanding block constructed out of a piece of wood with diamond mesh on it.  Many of the tools are homemade and adapted to be used for snow carving.  The kinds of tools Henzler uses also depends on what he can get his hands on and what is required for the job.  

One tool that Henzler doesn’t use is any sort of measuring device.  “I have been doing it by eye for the most part... I’m a sculptor and I’ve always been broke, so I can’t afford to waste any material,” he joked.  “I try to maximize the use of the block as much as possible.”  

Henzler prefers snow to ice for his outdoor sculptures.  “People like to go for ice because they think it’s more permanent,” he said.  “The problem with ice is all the detail disappears first, whereas in this (snow), you will get some detail lost, but mostly it will shrink and retain the detail.”