Temporary Treasures

 

 

 

Father and son team, Richard and Mathieu Chiasson, battled the below-freezing temperature to carve detailed ice sculptures as part of Fredericton’s FROSTival. The FROSTival, which took place on January 18th, has become a Fredericton tradition featuring live music and exhibition. Still, the ice sculptures are the stars of the show. Richard began his career as a professional chef but developed a passion for ice. 

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“Ice has always been a part of the restaurant industry, but he really fell in love with it,” says son Mathieu.

Sculptures are custom-designed for downtown businesses. Richard tries to capture not just the logo of each store but also the essence. The Donut Bar received a carving of the cartoon donut connoisseur Homer Simpson himself. While, another downtown business, Le’ s Gift house, commissioned an intricately designed Peacock. Design manager Cindy St. Onge says the ice sculptures are not just good for her business, but for the whole downtown community. 

“I’m happy with it, I like to see that it’s bringing people into the downtown and that the interest is there and still coming back to the downtown.” 

The ice sculptures have become quite popular over the last five years and not just for passersby to watch the carving process but for local businesses as well. 

“We had 11 available ice sculptures this year,” says Krista Raye, Marketing and Communications Coordinator for Downtown Fredericton, “and I put it out to our business in December to ask who might be interested, and within three hours, I had all of the spots filled.” 

Each piece is roughly carved in advance and then transported to the location where the Chiasson’s work to smooth out edges or add details. They use multiple tools, including chainsaws and blowtorches. Pieces can take anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours to carve out

“For competitions it can take a while to do, depends on if we are competing for speed or for the look,” says Mathieu. 

Regardless, Richard and Mathieu both like to give their audience a good show. They certainly add a level of showmanship to their carving and are happy to give kids a chance to try out scraping or carving, although they usually keep the chainsawing to the professionals. 

“We’ll talk to the crowd, and we’ll involve the kids and make it like a whole, you know experience,” says Mathieu. 

Unfortunately, the sculptures will only be kept up as long as the weather allows. But until then, residents of Fredericton will be able to enjoy the beautiful pieces of ice at all of their favourite downtown shops.