• Saturday-What'sUP February 7 - 04:28 pm

Once again, the theme for this year's Michigan Tech Winter Carnival is, "While frozen in the ice and snow, we dream of vacations on which to go." So all the statues were places to go on vacation, pretty clever idea with a vast choice of places to choose from. Paul and Nathalie Brandes, a.k.a. Capt. Paul and Dr. Nat chose the Keweenaw and Winter Carnival for their vacation spot this week, snapping pictures of the frozen destinations that the statue builders chose for their works of art.

The winner was the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) statue, depicting a London cityscape, including London Bridge, Big Ben and a double decker bus.

In the next photo the builders thought outer space would be a good place to go on vacation, which of course you have to take the Space Shuttle to get there.

One of my personal favorite places to vacation is depicted in the next two close-up photos from the Isle Royale statue…a howling wolf and an eagle perched on a rock. I'm not sure if the builders carve these ice sculptures or if they build a form to freeze water in the shape of the animal and then carve in the details once it's frozen. Either way, they're quite amazing additions to the statues.

We saw the beginnings of the Easter Island statue on yesterday's Pasty Cam, where the wall had no detail yet and one of the stone heads was carved almost to completion. Pretty neat to see the "in progress" and then the "finished product" photos back to back like this.

Next we travel to Southern California in an ocean scene, complete with a whale tail, boat and sea lion that is now sporting some incredibly icy whiskers since last night's portrait.

And last, but not least in today's lineup of places we dream about vacationing in, is Mackinac Island with several of the store fronts and the Grand Hotel. While it may not be a winter vacation destination, it sure is at the top of my favorites to visit in the summer months. Of course I'm kind of partial to visiting beautiful get-away spots that are located right here in the U.P., as it really is someplace special year round.

Have to agree with the judges ~ the London scene is definitely a job well done!
Congratulations TKE!

Super cool...thanks for the pix!

My winner was definitely The London Scene also.
My 2nd favorite was the Isle Royale Wolf.

Thanks, Paul and Nat, for sharing those with those
of us who don't get to go and see them.

I think all of the statues were great and I tip my hat to all who put forth the time and effort to create them.

So nice the last couple of days were bright and
sunny enough to get some good pictures. In the
typical overcast skies it is very difficult to
get good contrast in snow and ice when there
are no shadows.

Back in the 70's I used to take some of the
official Winter Carnival pictures for the MTU
newspaper, "The Lode". Back then we scrambled
all night for days to put together a full
color, special edition, glossy paper magazine
that documented the week and get it printed and
distributed before the week was out. Facebook,
etc. has changed things.

Very Cool!

Well done. My favorite is the Space Shuttle.

A bit late, but I vote for Southern California as the winner, cuz that's where I am - sunny and 75*!