Yellowknife realtor Shane Clark has given many house tours during his years in the real estate business.
On Saturday, though, Clark led visitors on what could only be described as a ‘royal tour’ throughout a grand estate currently under construction that left everyone in awe as they wandered through the premises.
“The premium features are lots of natural light and friendly construction materials. And at 20,000 square feet, you’re looking at a small mall,” Clark said of the intricate structure.
“One of the jokes I use on the tour is, ‘We must sell by spring,’” Clark laughed.
And while Clark’s remark gives everyone a good chuckle during the tour, the Snow King’s beloved ice castle sitting majestically on Yellowknife Bay is definitely not for sale.
Inner sanctum
Three times a week until its completion at the end of February, $10-per-person tours are being held to give people an inside glimpse of the work involved in building the Snow King’s annual pride and joy.
Clark said local people and those from around the world have visited the unique ice castle and all are impressed by the ice-age architecture.
“What the festival has found over the years is that there’s interest in how to build a snow castle.
“Already with just two tours, we’ve had people from France; Korea; all over Canada: Toronto, Vancouver, Provost in Alberta; and then also from the (United) States.
“They’re in awe of how it’s constructed, and they’re surprised about how much they’ve learned on the construction tour,” he said.
“Even if you’ve been to the castle 15 times and you come on the tour, there are things that you’re going to learn that you had no idea,” Clark said of the beehive of activity that happens before the ornate wooden doors are opened for the waiting crowd during the Snow King Festival in March.
Tools of the trade
Most often, Clark said people are impressed by how the walls are poured, and seeing the multiple, unique tools that have been created over the last three decades to build the mighty structure.
“And there’s a number (of the tools) that I point out along the way — there’s a lot of the chisels that the handles are either part of a broken-down canoe paddle, to the shaft of a hockey stick,” he said.
Another such tool where necessity was the mother of invention is what Clark said was a spinoff of the name Frankenstein.
“It’s a ‘Franken-saw,’ which is this 27-inch radius blade that is gas powered, and that is what’s used to cut ice blocks in the lake.”
Decades of castles
From humble beginnings in the 1990s, the Snow King, aka Tony Foliot, and his ever-expanding band of merry castle makers have delighted people with the annual building of a one-of-a-kind castle on Yellowknife Bay amid an array of houseboats, airplanes, an ice road, and people enjoying the winter season.
“It’s evolved over the years with more snow and different ways of creating the snow walls from a pile of snow and then cutting snow blocks to now where you can see the Bobcat and the snow blower push that snow 20 feet in the air,” said Clark.
“We’ve got the tallest walls of any castle this year — an extra four or five feet taller than the walls have been in the past. So that’s exciting.”
The XXIX Snow King Festival runs March 2-29.
—By Jill Westerman