Winter gets cooler with the Downtown Dartmouth Ice Festival

Hundreds of people gathered on Portland Street in Dartmouth, N.S., on Saturday to enjoy some good food, music and drinks, but ice sculptures were the main attraction.

The Downtown Dartmouth Ice Festival brought artists from around the East Coast to make sculptures as hundreds of people looked on.

Artists were told to use their imagination to create a sculpture from a 136-kilogram ice block.

"I like the challenge," said Richard Chiasson, a chef who has been sculpting for 44 years. He learned to carve with butter.

"I like the public interaction. I like the outdoors … all of that. It's beautiful."

Sculptures include a swan, an octopus and a mythological creature. There is one of Snoopy lying on his dog house.

Joe Palmer came from New Brunswick. When he began his sculpture, a little girl sat in the corner watching his every move.

She asked him to make a mermaid, so he did.

"I like to just be creative," said Palmer. "I had no plan. I woke up this morning and whatever the weather was, whatever … God threw at me, I just took it."

Sunday is the last day to see the sculptures before they melt away.

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