Sapporo Snow Festival

I am back in Shikaoi in one piece from a great weekend in Sapporo. The Sapporo Snow Festival was definitely worth the time and effort and it was nice to have the opportunity to see the Suginome's again (with whom I stayed). To the right is an image of me in front of the Suginome's house. I have commented in this space before about the amount of snow we get in Shikaoi (although lately it's been the wind we have been talking about) but nothing prepared me for the amount of snow they are getting this year in Sapporo. How appropriated they host a Snow festival! Some overseas may have heard about the amazing amount of snow Western Japan is has. Most of the focus has been farther south. Most of the areas get snow every year because they are up in the mountains. But the scale is really something. Many, many all time records have been broken further south, topping four meters of snow in some places with nearly two months left in the season. Less emphasis has been put on the amount of snow Sapporo has had (because they get snow every year), even though the situation is certainly not unknown to us in Tokachi. Every road has become a lane narrower and the ruts in the road are like something out of muddy Africa. Piles higher than cars are removed at night by an army of city workers. They are slowly working their way through every street and avenue in Sapporo. A never ending job (complicated by the fact there is no where to put the removed snow). It is sometimes hard to explain that although Alberta is indeed northerly and colder, it does not have nearly the amount of precipitation as a Sapporo. The storm systems that have moved over Japan this year often dump all their moisture on the West coast before passing over Shikaoi, making for a very average winter.

So what about the Festival? There is not too much to explain where one has pictures, but some context may prove useful. I saw the festival several times as it is hard to miss being so centrally placed in Odori Park in downtown Sapporo. Everything lit up at night was beautiful but the hustle and bustle of daytime is an important cultural experience. The entire scale of the event is definitely of an international caliber and is executed with typical Japanese attention to detail and efficiency that makes the whole experience enjoyable. The whole thing is set up to be very family friendly and so besides lots of cute snow creatures there were many families (from all over the world) enjoying the event. It was obvious that many Japanese and foreigners were foreign to snow itself (the big hint was that they were more often that not bundled up like spacemen) and many stumbled around in a state of shock at all the white stuff lying around, picking it up and studying it intensetly.

There were many elements to the event. Always present was the cacophony of Japanese companies trying to out-do each other. The "Citizen Snowman" festival was really impressive. This is where citizens of Sapporo can have at their own 3mx3mx3m block of snow to carve what ever they want. Also mind-bendingly good was the "International Snow Sculpting Competition" which made everyone walk away wondering "how on earth they made snow do that?" Also (held off the main site) is another mini-festival within the main festival which is the "International Snowmen Festival" which I did not see.





The biggest draw takes the form of large snow structures placed along the length of the park. Pictures can't do justice to the size of the structures, I don't feel I can explain either so this is why you should come and see for yourself. The examples above are meant to show the detail and scale of the main snow structures. Each structure has often several corporate sponsors that run cultural (both pop and traditional) events during the week. I have included a picture of some girls lip-synching on the Okinawa stage (I don't know which J-pop band). Also included below is an image of a statue of some Japanese celebrity. And while I have no idea who he is everyone was taking his picture.



When you see the stage structures it really takes your breath away. The detail and the size is staggering. Everyone walking past the shear vertical sides of the stages just has test the wall of snow. Sapporo, with a population of around two million, is well situated to host a winter festival because it gets a lot of snow every year. It is very rare in the world in this respect. The entire downtown site was raised maybe one or two feet above the pavement because of the snow pack. Quite a staggering amount of snow. Over all I was very impressed. It's really world class stuff. All right out of your imagination.

Some Quick Facts:
- The reason the Sapporo snow festival only last one week is because that's how long the structures can last and still look clean and free of smog.
- The Japanese military must be very creative because they help organize, create and remove all snow structures.
- This post was written while listening to Seu Jorge's excellent Portuguese David Bowie covers on found on the "The Life Aquatic" soundtrack I bought at Sapporo's Tower Rocords.

You can probably look forward to some more photos from the festival tomorrow.