Polar Peacock

Lake Morey Resort
Fairlee, VT
Winter Carnival
February 18 – 20, 2011
Snow sculpture contest
Artist's Choice Winners:
Donna Dodson & Andy Moerlein

The Tale of the Polar Peacock

The Polar Peacock is as elusive as the Northern Lights. Exotic and beguiling the icy white fowl has been part of northern folk lore on every continent. Reports of unspeakable iridescence and feathered protection from survivors of near freezing experiences have been repeated by elders to children around warm fires for thousands of years. There is no known substantiation for the bird. Why it appears to those in desperate freezing conditions, and why it is perceived as savior and provider of warmth at those moments of greatest need, is baffling. But the fact is that the Polar Peacock has been consistently imagined by a wide spectrum of lucid and competent explorers whose lives have brushed the precipice of death and then been miraculously spared. Our snow carving is a vain attempt to capture the enigma and magic that is this most rare of arctic phenomenon.

Image: The Polar Peacock, 8 ft tall, snow sculpture, 2011