MCCALL, Idaho — It has been a mild winter in McCall so the Chamber of Commerce is allowing businesses to bend the rules when it comes to creating snow and ice sculptures for the 2024 McCall Winter Carnival.
Normally the sculptures can only be made of ice and snow, but this year businesses are using wood bases to make the process easier as the town hasn't received much snow this winter.
"Last week we put up our box and there was absolutely no snow in the parking lot and it was 50 degrees," said Stacey Kucy of Stacey Cakes. "I kind of felt like a fool."
Driving through McCall on Wednesday I noticed a box at only two businesses, Stacey Cakes has been doing sculptures for a decade last year they had a pig and the year before it was Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall.
"My husband does the actual sculpting of our sculpture and he was like I don’t care, we are building a snow sculpture no matter what," said Stacey.
Businesses have gotten creative as the McCall Winter Carnivalhappens in just over a week from February 23-25. Stacey asked the plow driver to pile up all the snow in the parking lot for her. I talked with another business whose friend has been plowing driveways that were left for the winter to collect the snow.
However, if you go up further into the mountains at ski resorts like Brundage and Tamarack they have enough snow for winter sports. We caught up with Karen Hubbard who is building a piece called the Mountain Montage at Tamarack.
Karen has been crafting these sculptures since the 1980s, she told us it might take her between 80 and 90 hours to finish the piece and last year she did the dragon and the touching the moon piece at Albertsons.
"I can’t afford to sculpt anything this big with normal material like bronze or concrete because it is prohibitively expensive," said Hubbard, who does all this work because she is an artist. "You can be very creative because it is just snow, it is not going to last forever and that is also kind of the fun."
Back in town, Stacey Cakes will go back to their roots to craft a cupcake. The sculptures might not be as elaborate as in years past, but you can bet with the resiliency of a mountain community like McCall they will find a way to make it special as the sculptures are my favorite part about the carnival.
Next week I will do one more story to provide the tips, tricks, and what you need to know if you plan on heading up to the McCall Winter Carnival. Idaho News Six is sponsoring the event this year and we will have members of our team up there for you to meet.
We will also be live-streaming the parade on our digital 6.2 channel so stay tuned for more coverage from this classic winter event.
