ELY - It’s a snow carver's paradise!  The northwoods town of Ely is celebrating winter and bringing artists together for a snow sculpting symposium.

A charming northern Minnesota town is celebrating the season.  "They say Minnesota nice, well, Ely nice is even nicer," said Chris Ellerbroek, Snow Sculpting Symposium Director.  "People are just drawn to Ely, they come here and they visit and they just want to live here," said Irene Hartfield, Ely Winter Festival Volunteer Board Chair.

Carpenter and local artist Wade Pharr decided to make his home in Ely 10 years ago and he's been snow sculpting ever since.  "I like the challenge, it seems like almost every piece I’ve ever really made, my biggest push is to see how much snow I can get off the ground and still have it standing up," said Pharr.  In Ely’s Whiteside Park, Pharr was working on a piece he calls 'Bring on the Heat.'  "It’s fun to watch the kids come up and get excited about it," said Pharr.  "Adults are also really bonding to it and enjoying it." 

"I like it, I always like his pieces," said snow sculptor Jaymie Stocks.  Stocks of Ely is helping Pharr finish his creation and after 5 days of work, it's nearly complete.  "I like to get nice sharp edges," said Pharr.  "I like it when people can walk throughout the whole park and if they look back, mine catches their eye."  "I think that one has been the crowd pleaser just because of the detail he's put into it," said Ellerbroek.

More than 50 artists from Minnesota, Michigan and Canada converged on Ely to carve the unique snow sculptures.  "We have people from all over the place," said Ellerbroek.  "A lot of people just like getting together every year too, meeting new people," said Stocks.  Stocks finished her own frozen work of art recently; she calls it 'Fabtuso.'  "We all kind of like the style of Picasso so we just kind of decided to just do like a big colossal head and just do like the really big extreme offset features," said Stocks.  "He’s got a lot of movement and detail and I think it's really cool that you can get that much detail out of the snow."

"This is my favorite part of course is the snow sculptures because it's very unique, it's just cool," said Hartfield.  The snow sculptors carved their creations from huge blocks of compressed snow.  They started this past Thursday, many of them worked through Sunday, now their creations are on display for all to see.  "I enjoy it enough where if she went to negative 30 I would still be out there, it's a lot of fun," said Pharr.  It’s the heart of the Ely Winter Festival.

The Ely Winter Festival runs through February 14th.  Log onto www.elywinterfestival.com for a list of upcoming events and activities.