(Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette)

HANCOCK — The City of Hancock, in collaboration with Visit Keweenaw, held its first annual Snow Sculpture Invitational on Quincy Green in front of the Hancock Community Hub. The event featured two local teams and two national teams creating works of art out of an eight-foot cube of snow in three days. In the end, one team would be announced the winner of the best sculpture.

The event began at 1 p.m. Friday and ended at the same time Sunday

During those 48 hours teams were hard at work carving their works in snow while friends and family enjoyed sledding on the adjacent hill on Quincy Green. In addition, there were booths proving food and other refreshment.

Sculptors interacted with the public and shared the methods they used to create their pieces and tell everyone a little bit about themselves.

Hancock Community Development Manager Todd Gast said the area’s snowfall made the event a natural fit.

“Southern locales where they have a lot of these competitions, don’t have the kind of snow that we have to compete with,” Gast said. “Natural snow is much better to work with than man made snow. Man made snow has got a lot of ice crystals and ice cubes in it. When you’re trying to do fine works of art like this outside, and you only have two days to do it, you really want to have that kind of snow that actually works with you.”

This was something the two national teams spoke of.

Joshua Jakubowski of team Sculptora Borealis from the greater Milwaukee area said his team loves coming to this area for that reason.

“We’re usually used to kind of carving through solid ice, basically,” he said. “So this is much, much nicer and friendlier to work with.”

Sculptora Borealis, also consisting of Bob and Mike Lechtenberg, had visited the area a few years ago and their presence and demonstration of how to carve a block of snow assisted in the formation of the event.

Jakubowski is hoping to see the event grow in coming years, and possibly look to move here as well.

“I love winters,” he said. “I love legitimate true winters [with] lots of snow. I love the people up here and the community is amazing.”

For Sculptora Borealis’ sculpture, they wanted to craft something that was in the vein as Michigan Tech’s Winter Carnival theme “Dragons, Knights and Legendary Sights.” So they came up with the idea of a Spartan helmet with a sword piercing into it from the top. There was also a flower growing from within and around the helmet which symbolized life after death.

Sculptora Borealis also wanted a design where they could try something that required hollowing out the sculpture. The sword ended up being a good idea, because the portion that pierced the helmet assisted in supporting the interior of the helmet.

Team USA, consisted of Michael Sponholtz, Mike Martino and Greg Moerner. They had all pulled together to create a homage to Sponhotltz’s Italian father, Dino Gasparri, and a work Gasparri created 40 to 50 years ago. The piece retained much of its cube shape, though on one end there was an incredibly detailed eye and on the other smooth lips.

“It was an easy carve,” Sponholtz said. “But when you do very simple shapes, you have to be right on, because if you’re off, it shows. But I knew we’d have time to dink around with it and get what we wanted, and we’re real happy with the result.”

The local area was represented by TKE fraternity and St. Albert the Great University Parish.

The St. Als team consisted of Abigail Smith, Emma Kerschbaum and Devin Spurgeon. They created a piece shaped like a heart, with different designs on the front and back of the structure as a relief.

“It’s the beginning and end of his life,” Smith said. “And the verse that we based it on is just that Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered on them. So it’s kind of Mary’s experience of being the mother of Jesus, and the love that she had for him and the love we had for her.”

The TKE team was made up of Bruer Staley, Zach Duford and “fraternity sweetheart” Hallie Olson.

The trio made a sculpture that represented the local area, which consisted of the Quincy Mine Hoist with a moose and mine cart in front of it. Staley described the sculpture as easier than the work done at the Winter Carnival, but said there was a catch with softer snow.

“It’s a lot less forgiving, but it’s easier to do,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to make mistakes, and it’s a lot harder to fix those mistakes so you got to have a lot more delicate of a touch. But it’s less grueling on the body.”

Staley also complimented the crowds that would gather and observe their work, and said that it was a different experience from Winter Carnival due to the heightened interaction with the public. TKE and St. Albert the Great’s teams also said that the two national teams provided a variety of tips and advice for snow sculpting of which they implemented into the designs.

Gast announced the winners with second place going to Team USA and first place going to Sculptora Borealis. The win was another added to Sculptora Borealis’ eight year career, winning five out of eight at the US National Competition in Lake Geneva.

“We’ve been doing it for a little while, and we’ve been blessed to have a lot of success,” Jakubowski said.

With the inaugural Snow Sculpture Invitational concluded, there could be a date change in the coming years.

“We’re hoping to bring this to a competitive national scene here in Hancock,” Gast said. “The teams love working with our snow, and we’re gonna really try to get this to be a part of our Heikinpäivä celebration in January of 2026.”

The snow sculptures will be around for public viewing, but sledding is not allowed on the side of Quincy Green where the statues stand.