For the thirtieth year in a row, the Snowking Winter Festival is returning to Yellowknife in 2025, and is bringing along the International Snowcarving Symposium.
Running from March 1st to the 28th, the Festival will be open to Northern residents and tourists alike as it celebrates culture, art, and music.
Helping to launch the Festival is the Annual International Snowcarving Symposium, which is returning for its ninth year. This time around, the Symposium will feature ten different teams of professional carvers, which makes it the largest field the Festival has ever seen.
The theme for this year’s sculptures will be “Medieval Lore.” Teams will be working on sculptures of knights, wizards, dragons, and other figures from popular folklore and fairy tales.
Snowking has shared the full list of participating teams for the Symposium:
SNOW SPIRIT: Saskatchewan artist Patricia Leguen is bringing her decades of experience in a team up with NWT carving veterans John Sabourin and Derrald Taylor.
Y2YX, YUKON TO YELLOWKNIFE: Yukon artist Leslie Leong will be working with Snowking veteran Kris Schlagintweit, and Adam Pucek. This team’s sculpture “Coming Up for Air” won the Symposium Artists’ Choice Award at the 2024 Festival.
CRYOLIGHTS: Returning after several years of absence, Avalanche Kid Joel Maillet and Lady Icicle Myka Jones will be partnering up with King Joe Snow, who is part of the Snowcastle building team.
SUN DOGS: From across the country, this team consists of Larry MacFarlane from Winnipeg, Manoj Khorugdharry from Ottawa, and Cliff Vacheresse from Edmonton.
RAGA-DASS ROAD CREW: Winners of the 2023 People’s Choice Award, this team will be bringing back Isabelle Gasse, Joelle Gagnon, and castle builder “Eugele” from Fort Smith.
THE BOARD: Joining the Symposium for the second year in a row is Albert Lucio, Bruce Peck, and Abram Waterman from Texas. Their 2024 sculpture “Tranquil” was described as “gravity defying.”
NOMAD’ART: Returning carver Fabien Champeval of France will be teaming up with Fi Schroth, and newcomer carver Celine Murillo.
TEAM UKRAINE/USA: Recipients of the Peoples’ Choice award in 2024, this team is led by Bogdan Kutseyvich of Ukraine, with Dave Rothstein and Adam Warmack from the USA.
BARCELONA FOREVER: A newcomer team to the Symposium. This team is comprised of Emiliano Lorenzo Vicente, Josu Gonzalez Ruiz and Dario Reina Gonzalez, who all hail from Barcelona, Spain.
THE DUTCHIES: Another newcomer, this is a two-man team comprised of Peter van Borssum Waalkes, and his partner Mark Sanders, both from Haarlem, Netherlands.
The 9th Annual International Snowcarving Symposium will be running from February 26th to March 2nd.
