Houghton is the largest city and county seat of Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Houghton is the largest city in the Copper Country region. It is the fifth largest city in the Upper Peninsula, with a population of 8,386 at the 2020 census. Houghton is the principal city of the Houghton micropolitan area, which includes all of Houghton and Keweenaw County.
Monbetsu is a city located in Okhotsk Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan; on the Sea of Okhotsk. The name comes from Ainu Mopet, Ainu "-pet" would be interpreted "-betsu" in Japanese as well of other city names in Hokkaido.
Winterlude is an annual winter festival held in Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec.
The Sapporo Snow Festival is a festival held annually in Sapporo, Japan, over seven days in February. Odori Park, Susukino, and Tsudome are the main sites of the festival.
The Quebec Winter Carnival, commonly known in both English and French as Carnaval, is a pre-Lenten festival held in Quebec City. After being held intermittently since 1894, the Carnaval de Québec has been celebrated annually since 1955. That year, Bonhomme Carnaval, the mascot of the festival, made his first appearance. Up to one million people attended the Carnaval de Québec in 2006 making it, at the time, the largest winter festival in the world. It is, however, the largest winter festival in the Western Hemisphere.
The Fur Rendezvous Festival is an annual winter festival held in Anchorage, Alaska in late February. The self-styled "largest winter festival in North America", Fur Rendezvous is highly anticipated by many Anchorage-area residents as marking the beginning of the end of a long winter and the approach of spring. In 2012, Fur Rendezvous was selected as the number one winter carnival in the world by the National Geographic Traveler.
Ice sculpture is a form of sculpture that uses ice as the raw material. Sculptures from ice can be abstract or realistic and can be functional or purely decorative. Ice sculptures are generally associated with special or extravagant events because of their limited lifetime.
An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. Ice hotels, dependent on sub-freezing temperatures, are constructed from ice and snow and typically have to be rebuilt every year. Ice hotels exist in several countries, and they have varying construction styles, services and amenities, the latter of which may include ice bars, restaurants, chapels, saunas and hot tubs.
Snow sculpture or snow art is a sculpture form comparable to sand sculpture or ice sculpture in that most of it is now practiced outdoors, and often in full view of spectators, thus giving it kinship to performance art in the eyes of some. The materials and the tools differ widely, but often include hand tools such as shovels, hatchets, and saws. Snow sculptures are usually carved out of a single block of snow about 6–15 ft (1.8–4.6 m) on each side and weighing about 20 - 30 tons. The snow is densely packed into a form after having been produced by artificial means or collected from the ground after a snowfall.
The Saint Paul Winter Carnival is an annual festival in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States.
Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse is a commune in the Isère department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France.
The Harbin International Ice and Snow festival is an annual winter festival that takes place with a theme in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, and now is the largest ice and snow festival in the world. At first participants in the festival were mainly Chinese, however it has since become an international festival and competition, with the festival attracting 18 million visitors and generating 28.7 billion yuan of revenue. The festival includes the world's biggest ice sculptures.
The Early December 2007 North American winter storm was a major winter storm which affected the majority of the United States and portions of southern Canada from November 29 to December 5, hitting the Intermountain West and Midwestern United States, the Great Lakes region and the Northeast. The storm brought significant snows to portions of the Upper Midwest, Great Plains and Great Lakes regions of the United States and Canada on December 1 with a major winter storm for Quebec, Ontario and parts of the Northeast region on December 2 and 3 as well as the Canadian Maritimes on December 4 and 5. The system was also responsible for a major ice storm across the Midwestern states which caused disruptions to several major cities including Des Moines, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and Toronto. The storm was blamed for at least 16 deaths across nine US states and one Canadian province. 10 traffic deaths had been reported, as of 2 December 2007.
A snowman is an anthropomorphic snow sculpture of a man often built in regions with sufficient snowfall and is a common winter tradition. In many places, typical snowmen consist of three large snowballs of different sizes with some additional accoutrements for facial and other features. Due to the sculptability of snow, there is also a wide variety of other styles. Common accessories include branches for arms and a rudimentary smiley face, with a carrot used for a nose. Clothing, such as a hat or scarf, may be included. The low cost and common availability of materials mean snowmen are usually abandoned once completed.
The International Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival "Ice, Snow, and Fire" has been held annually in Perm, Russia, in Gorky Amusement Park since 1995.
Ice cutting is a winter task of collecting surface ice from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses and use or sale as a cooling method. Rare today, it was common before the era of widespread mechanical refrigeration and air conditioning technology. The work was done as a winter chore by many farmers and as a winter occupation by icemen. Kept insulated, the ice was preserved for cold food storage during warm weather, either on the farm or for delivery to residential and commercial customers with ice boxes. A large ice trade existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, until mechanical refrigeration displaced it.
The Montreal Winter Carnival Ice Hockey Tournaments were a series of annual ice hockey tournaments held in the 1880s in conjunction with the Montreal Winter Carnival, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. First held in 1883, these tournaments are considered to be the first championship ice hockey tournaments and the predecessor to the first championship ice hockey league, the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada.
Michigan Technological University's Winter Carnival is an annual celebration that takes place every winter in Houghton, Michigan. It is a time to celebrate the large amounts of snowfall Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula receives each winter. Winter Carnival is characterized by snow statues, outdoor games, and many student activities. February 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of Winter Carnival.
Abel Ramírez Águilar was a Mexican sculptor who won many prizes not only for traditional pieces in wood, stone and metal, but also for ice and snow sculptures in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe. He was trained as a sculptor in Mexico and the Netherlands and has exhibited his work individually and collectively since the 1960s. He discovered snow and ice sculpting while visiting Quebec in the 1980s, first experiencing snow in his forties. The challenge intrigued him and he began sculpting this medium as an amateur. He began sculpting ice and snow professionally when he was entered in the competition associated with the 1992 Winter Olympic Games without his knowledge. Having practiced beforehand at an ice factory in Mexico City, he won the gold medal for this event, leading to invitations to other competitions for over twenty years. Ramírez lived in Mexico City.
A winter festival, winter carnival, snow festival, or frost fair is an outdoor cold weather celebration that occurs in wintertime.
