While many students spend the midterm-filled days before Winter Carnival trapped in Baker-Berry Library, Jeff Wiltsey '09 and Benjy Meigs '10 have passed much of the last week on the Green, sacrificing sleep, warmth and the occasional cellular phone in pursuit of this year's Winter Carnival snow sculpture.
By the time festivities begin this weekend, Weigs and Miltsey hope that the hours they've spent on a construction site littered with empty boxes from EBA's and discarded hot chocolate cups will see the transformation of a large, wooden, two-story box filled with 250 cubic yards of snow into a submarine being pulled asunder by a belligerent squid.
This year marks the first that Wiltsey and Meigs assumed chairmanship over the Winter Carnival sculpture, taking over responsibilities from Dan Schneider '07, who had worked on the project for the last four years.
Although Schneider has overseen the pair's work throughout the process, the co-chairs took on all of the main responsibilities of building.
"Dan wanted to make sure we knew everything about how this sculpture comes about," Wiltsey said, noting the increased level of commitment which leading the project requires.
Although Wiltsey and Meigs said last week that they were pleased with the construction, the sculpture's progess had been significantly delayed by the middle of this week. Students had to work late into the night to prepare for Thursday's opening ceremony.
"Nothing has collapsed, and nobody has died, so we're doing pretty well," Wiltsey said, last week.
While Schneider said that he had wanted to construct the snow sculpture ever since visiting Dartmouth in high school, the new co-chairs' involvement was far less driven. Meigs, an engineering sciences major, was first drawn to the project after laboring on last year's sculpture.
"I was just walking through the Green, and somebody started yelling at me to fill buckets," Meigs said.
Wiltsey, a government major, is one of the first non-studio art or engineering sciences majors to oversee the sculpture construction.
Planning for this year's sculpture began at the start of Winter term, when students from the Winter Carnival Council began brainstorming potential design ideas.
These students put together sketches and a 1/36 scale clay model, which was used to determine the ultimate dimensions of the structure.
The group then had to seek numerous approvals for the design and obtain permits from both the College and from the Town of Hanover, which owns the Green property.
Construction of the sculpture begins with the creation of large wooden frames, to which the builders then affix panels of plywood, creating a basin in which to pack snow.
The task of filling the structure with snow can take scores of people and days of effort.
When snow can't be obtained naturally, the workers take shipments from Hanover's Campion Ice Skating Rink, Meigs said.
The need for help has pushed the sculpture workers to use some unorthodox methods to attract laborers. In what Schneider called "shameless recruiting," workers will stop passersby on the Green and ask them to dedicate 15 minutes of their time to the project.
"Now is the time of year that people learn to avoid the Green, so that they don't have to work on the sculpture," Wiltsey said.
When soliciting Dartmouth students doesn't work, the organizers send out mass e-mails requesting student participation. But deperate times call for more desperate measures, Schneider said.
Schneider said that, last year, he made a reporter from The Dartmouth shovel a bucket of snow for each question she asked.
The co-chairs also receive substantial help from Dartmouth sports teams, Wiltsey said.
On Jan. 30, freshman members of the football team spent their off-day from training filling the wooden structure with snow.
During two one-hour shifts, players used pick-axes and shovels to dismantle a large pile of snow for use in the project, abiding by the mantra "If it's brown, leave it down. If it's white, it's quite all right!" said Shane Peterlin '11, a member of the football team.
Joey Zimring '11, another member of the team, joked that the activity was a team-building exercise for the group.
"I hold the buckets, they shovel, they hold the buckets, I shovel, it definitely develops team unity on the frozen tundra of the Green," he said.
Once filled, the buckets of snow are sent up a converted hay-elevator that Schneider found in a Rutland, Vt., farmhouse and altered for use on the Green by adding increased safety mechanisms.
After each day of packing snow, the structure is hosed down with water to freeze and solidify the day's work.
The night before the Winter Carnival's opening ceremony, the sculpture's surrounding boards are taken down and the workers begin carving the piled snow to match their design.
"We really have to plan out the dimensions of the sculpture before we carve it," Meigs said, "It's as much an engineering project as it is artistic."
Traditionally, activity on the sculpture crescendoes at this point, as workers stay up all night to finish the project, aided by the labor of any student they are able to recruit.
"It's an interesting combination of the sculpture die-hards, people who saw the blitzes and planned to come that night and drunk people who are staggering home from parties," Schneider said.
Several participants said that the all-nighter was one of their favorite parts of working on the sculpture.
"We see the lights in the campus buildings turn off one by one," Meigs said. "It's cool to watch the town go to sleep."
That is not to say, however, that the night is not without its travails. Sculpture builders recounted stories about the interesting effects of mixing sleep deprivation, intoxicated shovelers and sub-zero weather.
For example, one student last year who "thought it would be a good idea to wear sneakers in -15 degree weather," Meigs said, developed frostbite and had to seek medical treatment.
Last year, Wiltsey said, Schneider accidentally dropped his cellular phone in the packed snow which was being used to construct the sculpture.
It wasn't until the wooden walls were taken down, however, that he realized his phone was embedded in the sculpture.
Schneider's phone was later recovered when the statue was carved.
Although the overall process involved a lot of hard work, the co-chairs said, the experience of taking charge of the sculpture was ultimately rewarding.
"There's a zen-like quality to building something so temporary," Meigs said.
"Yeah, thanks, Robert Frost," Wiltsey replied.
