This year's snow sculpture, a cupcake, will join a diverse collection of from sculptures past years, including Gandalf, Ullr the Norse god and a stegosaurus. Part of Winter Carnival since 1925, the snow sculpture on the Green has been subject to the whims of climate, eclectic design, vandalism and dynamite.
Once structured as a competition open to all of campus, the Winter Carnival Council now governs the design and building of the sculpture.
The first snow sculpture from the 1925 Winter Carnival appeared, when viewed from certain angles, to encircle Baker Tower. The sculptors aimed to honor the Scandinavian carnivals that had inspired Dartmouth's Winter Carnival. As a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Winter Carnival's inception, a four-walled castle was built on the Green last year in tribute to the original.
Centennial celebrations have inspired snow sculpture designs in recent years, but some have been more successful than others.
A likeness of the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge was built in 2009 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Dartmouth Outing Club. Due to unseasonably warm and rainy weather, the sculpture collapsed the day before the Opening Ceremonies. Students worked overnight to build a twin-peaked replica of Mt. Moosilauke to replace the original sculpture.
In 2004, a 30-foot Cat in the Hat sculpture was constructed to commemorate the 100th birthday of Theodore Geisel '25, better known as Dr. Seuss.
Important Dartmouth historical figures, such as College founder Eleazar Wheelock, have also become inspiration for snow sculptures.
A 37-foot sculpture of Wheelock, complete with a 15-gallon beer mug in hand, was constructed in his honor in 1939. The 20-ton sculpture did not survive the weekend and fell apart before the end of Carnival, with snow channels narrowly missing a couple of students.
Although recent sculptures have been on the relatively small side, sculptures of the mid-19th century were often over 30 feet tall.
In 1940, the 40-foot-tall "Starshooter" depicted a Native American shooting an arrow at the sky. "Fire and Ice," a 1957 depiction of a Native American emerging from a pillar of flames and named after a Robert Frost poem, was originally planned to be 50 feet high.
A Carnival sculpture of a 47.5-foot snowman playing a saxophone was once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest snowman ever built. The sculpture, "Mardi Gras in Bourbon Street," was built in 1987.
Yet for all of these engineering triumphs, other Winter Carnival snow sculptures have suffered failures in the face of uncooperative weather, an affliction the Winter Carnival Council of 2012 is currently facing.
Like this year's sculpture, past Winter Carnival sculptures have had to overcome uncooperative temperatures and inadequate snowfall.
In 1938, a professor's wife sold the remaining snow on her lawn to the sculpture committee. One year, students scraped ice off of the frozen Occom Pond to erect "Ullr," the Norse god.
Favorable weather allowed some sculptures to remain on the Green long after the weekend's end.
In 1955, "Nanook," an Eskimo perched on a whale, resisted destruction until April. "Nanook" was blasted with dynamite multiple times in February but survived, according to the Claremont Daily Eagle.
Other sculptures, like the 1991 "King Neptune" sculpture, have been sites for vandalism. To protest the Gulf War, students threw paint on the snow sculpture and painted a large, red peace sign on the ground in front of Dartmouth Hall. In 1979, students painted the snow sculpture red, green and black to protest the lack of minority recruitment efforts practiced by the College.
The 1992 protest of the College administration's alcohol ban in dorms prompted the creation of the Grinch perched on a beer keg.
During some years, encouraging students to participate in the construction of the sculpture has been challenging.
In 1969, when the sculpture was designed to be a fire-breathing butane-equipped dragon, three students proposed an "Administration Night" to help build the sculpture. In a letter to the faculty, students invited professors to "bring one bucket and one shovel from 7:30 to 9:30" p.m. to help with the construction.
