Where I live: Dueling Chainsaws square off at Plymouth Ice Festival January 22-24, 2010

Michigan's Plymouth Ice Festival has a new name and a new look, but it this metropolitan Detroit event should still be a spectacular show of icy artistry and winter fun.

The annual festival celebrates its 28th year January 22-24 with new events like a Dueling Chainsaws Speed Carving competition that promises to inject new excitement into one of the nation's top-ranked ice carving festivals.

The Plymouth Ice Festival showcases the talent of ice sculpture artisans that include professional ice carvers, chefs, culinary instructors, and local high school, community college, and university students. While competitions, demonstrations and seminars sanctioned by the National Ice Carving Association promote ice sculpture as an art form, the cool carvings, warm treats, and red-hot competitions provide plenty of family-friendly fun for an expected 100,000 visitors over the three-day weekend.

We look forward to visiting Plymouth late nights during festival weekends to see the ice sculptures bathed in colored lights (on the way home from Plymouth Whalers' hockey games, of course!), but making a special trip to see the festival during the day to see the ice carvers in action is also a lot of fun.

We watched carvers meticulously produce detailed sculptures when we visited the festival last year, many of them from single blocks of ice weighing as much as several hundred pounds or as more complex sculptures using as many as 100 massive blocks of ice. Some of the most intricately detailed and large sculptures took the entire three-day weekend to complete.

I have to admit that the idea of a dueling chainsaw speed carving show intrigues me. Contenders have only 15 minutes to produce a carving and have it judged by the audience. The festival site bills this event as involving "two men, two chainsaws, one winner" (What? no female chainsaw carvers are taking this challenge?), and it should be interesting to see what sort of pieces result from speedy chainsaw users.

Plymouth's ice festival originated when the son of a local hotel owner attended a similar event in Japan and saw it as a great way to lure visitors to Plymouth during the traditional post-winter holiday lull in business.

Visitors will find lots of action and excitement with a full schedule of activities and competition during the day. Some of the most popular exhibitions can attract larger crowds and a constantly moving line of spectators snaking along in front of them, which is another reason we like visiting the Sculpture Garden (with more than 100 ice sculptures on display!) at night after scheduled activities are over for the day.

January can bring pretty nippy weather, so dressing warmly and checking out the festival's Hot Spot for a snack or a little shopping are the hot tips for visitors.

Plymouth Ice Festival visitors can view the Sculpture Garden around the clock during the three-day event. Activities, events and demonstrations are 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Sunday.

Note: "Where I live" posts are part of a series of periodic stories about special events and people in, and around, metro Detroit. "Where I live" posts are stories I'll post in addition to my regular schedule of stories about attractions around the larger Midwestern region. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Comments

[thewordwire]

Wow! I'd love to see something like that someday! Have fun and thanks for sharing.

[Dominique King]

Wordwire-I love the creativity I see in some of the sculptures, and going during the day last year to see the whole creative process was interesting.
Plymouth's a quaint little town and fun to walk around any day, but it's especially hopping during the ice fest.

[Lorraine]

Ice + women holding chainsaws. Love this post!

[Dominique King]

Lorraine-I was glad I found photos of women carving with chainsaws...there were a lot of them out there last year, so I figured maybe there might be something other than "two men" in some of the chainsaw competitions :lol:

[Becks Davis]

I'm really hoping to make it out to Plymouth this weekend to catch some of the fun. Thanks for the tips!

[Dominique King]

Becks-We're thinking of going late this year to try to take some night photos. We've seen the lit sculptures a few times after Whaler games, but this year it seems like it might not be quite as cold...so walking around with the cameras at night might be a little more pleasant.
I remember the weather being very cold when we went out there during the day last year, and I was all about the freebie hand warmers they were handing out at the fest!