Imperfect weather conditions and lack of student help could not totally derail the construction of the Winter Carnival's annual snow sculpture, which looks back to the creations of decades past for inspiration.
This year's sculpture -- a replica of the Emerald City from "The Wizard of Oz" -- ties in with the Carnival theme, "There's Snow Place Like Home," and sits in its customary location at the center of the Green.
Tim Zeitler '03, who served on the Winter Carnival Committee as sculpture co-chair along with Austin Brey '05, explained that his design sought to recapture the grandeur of earlier sculptures while remaining simple enough in plan to allow the participation of student volunteers.
"I really wanted a revival of how things were in the past," Zeitler said. "I have an idealized view of those huge structures I've seen in old photos, and I wanted to show people what students can really accomplish."
Brey said that the committee planned to emulate 1972's "City of Oz" sculpture, which had "inspired us to go with a castle-style design."
As for the plan itself, Zeitler said that the sculpture "is somewhat based on the city's portrayal in 'The Wizard of Oz,'" but he added that "it has a kind of modern feel to it."
Last year's sculpture featured a variety of apelike figures cowering before a 20-foot black monolith based on the famous opening sequence from the film "2001: A Space Odyssey."
The sculpture perplexed many students unfamiliar with the movie, and according to Winter Carnival Chair Ryan Bennett '04 it did not encourage the student involvement in the building process that is an important part of the annual tradition.
"That was a bit specific in that you needed knowledge in how to work the construction of the metal frames of the figures," Bennett said. "Our sculpture is a castle that anyone can help build."
Help was anything but forthcoming for most of the week, however, as few students pledged their time to aid in the building of the structure. This lack of volunteers meant that the construction of the sculpture was done largely by a small group of dedicated students -- often Zeitler and Brey alone -- who worked late into the night to ready the structure for Thursday's opening ceremonies.
Also hindering the timely completion of the project was the lack of good snow for building. Prior to last week's icy snowstorm, warm weather conditions had dashed any hopes for an early start to construction.
"Everything on the Green is a hard icy layer with powder underneath," Zeitler said, explaining that such snow resisted packing and was often stained with dirt and rocks.
The technology behind the building process is relatively simple: students shovel piles of snow -- delivered to the site by Facilities, Operations and Management -- into barrels, which are then poured behind a sturdy plywood framework.
After the construction of each tier of the structure, the frames are moved up and the process repeated with the aid of scaffolding.
Snow sculptures have been met with varying degrees of success, although earlier decades featured structures of legendary size that seemingly never suffered the depredations of warm or snow-free weather.
The winter of 1955 was apparently so cold that the sculpture, an Eskimo named "Nanook" pictured riding a whale, refused to melt and eventually had to be destroyed by dynamite.
As recently as 1987, a 47.5-foot, saxophone-playing snowman built in honor of that year's Mardi Gras-themed Carnival made the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest snowman ever constructed.
The snow sculpture tradition fell on hard times in the 1990s, however, as several works came to a premature demise at the hands of warm weather and rowdy students.
1995's effort, which featured a howling wolf perched atop a rock, melted down to an ambiguous lump and was regarded by many at the time as having clear phallic connotations.
A year later, a stegosaurus portrayed devouring Baker Tower -- painstakingly built with the aid of trucked-in snow -- found itself overcome by driving rainfall, which washed away much of the sculpture less than a day after its completion.
In 1997, an ambitious sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon collapsed only hours from the start of festivities, as soaring temperatures melted snow and toppled the mounted knight.
Nor has weather been the only culprit: even when temperatures dip below freezing, recent sculptures have found themselves at the mercy of vengeful students.
The abominable snowman of 1994, criticized for its less-than-redeeming aesthetic qualities, was mysteriously beheaded, while students spray-painted 1991's King Neptune in protest of the ongoing Persian Gulf War.
Despite the recent string of bad luck and mishaps, members of the Winter Carnival Committee are confident that this year's sculpture has bucked the trend.
"We're all very excited about it," Bennett said, describing this winter's effort as a "much better sculpture than in years past."
The tradition of building snow sculptures during Winter Carnival dates back to 1925, when students constructed an ice castle on Alumni Field. Four years later, the site was moved to the center of the Green, where it has remained ever since.
