Despite there being a lack of snow, the Michigan Tech statue builders came through with impressive snowy statues again this year. Snow had to be hauled in with pickup and dump trucks, while some of the ice work was made in early January and stored out of the sun. Taana Blom took a stroll around campus on Thursday and snapped a few photos to share with us.

The overall carnival theme was “From Forests to Shores We Love the Outdoors.” The First place winners in the Men’s Division for the first time since 2018, was Tau Kappa Episilon with their statue entry, “The Lighthouse Shines the Way as the Ranger Heads to Bay” They had an icy replica of the Ranger III, along with the Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entry Lighthouse, plus a moose, canoe and a log cabin.

The Co-ed third place winners were Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Phi Epsilon with their entry, “To National Parks We Go Through Frozen Paths of Snow”. They featured a Saguaro National Park desert scene with a cactus and bighorn sheep, a mountain vista at Yosemite National Park and a moose beckoning you to Isle Royale National Park.

For more of the results, check out the Michigan Technological University video with a look at more of the statue winners. You can also click on the following link and see all the winners in each category: MTU Carnival 2024 Results

These are amazing, and especially for what they
had to work with this year. They always seem to
pull it off. They should be proud. I just love the
lighthouse!!

How incredible...it's so amazing they were able to
pull it off. I heard one story of some gals that
took a van to a snowpile, filled the van and went
back to Tech. lol....And of course, you GOTTA love
the White City lighthouse indeed! And glass horns.
Wow. They did the Chapel and held a sermon or two,
as well.....those kids all deserve to hold their
heads HIGH for this job that was so well done.

As always, a lot of hard work went into these
sculptures. Too bad the weather didn’t cooperate.
Someone should have done one about global
warming and the point would’ve been made
as it melted away.

I totally agree they did a miraculous job with what they had to work with. Most of the photos and video did a good job at cropping out the vast areas barren of any white stuff. For some reason it was particularly shocking to see the white works of art totally surrounded by brownish green. Here are a couple of examples.

WOW!!!!

And Alex.....right on~ There SHOULDA been a Climate
Change statue!!

Donna, Alex:

Might this have been a good one? I told the AI/Copilot to create it.

Yes, what is the old joke? "He could sell snow in Alaska"? Maybe you could have made a few $$$ filling up your pickup with snow and heading to Tech's campus during critical build times!

Always amazing no matter what the theme. The clear ice additions always are impressive. So, D.A., what are we looking at in the first picture you posted?

Wish the vid was longer so we could see the entries better.

Here's another take after I kept refining it. It's ability is quite remarkable

The first picture was the entry from the MTU Husky PEP band. It won 6th place.

Even back in the late 1970's, I remember them bringing in loads of snow using full size dump trucks from wherever Houghton dumped their snow. I'm guessing this year the snow "dump yard" was mostly empty.

In 1977 we did some novel yet approved things that later were banned, like using structural steel. Douglas Houghton Hall won first place that year in the first time "crashing" the historically Frat only division. Nowadays I've seen them using clothe irons to melt and flatten surfaces.

Wow, i never knew they were allowed to use steel!

I saw that was the PEP band's entry and it got 6th place - just WHAT is it?

jbuck,

My guess? It is a bench, like the bleachers where they can sit to play some jazz.

Grounds ended up hauling in 50 dumptrucks of snow to
campus for the statue builders. I was able to watch
them as they dumped them on one of the sidewalks
outside of the Walker bldg. Thanks Mary, I enjoy
sharing my photos for those not in the area. :)