In pictures: Yellowknife’s international snow carving symposium

After four days of carving, shaping and shovelling, nine teams have transformed giant blocks of snow into magical sculptures on Yellowknife Bay.

The 2026 Snowkings’ Winter Festival International Carving Symposium kicked off on March 5. The completed snow sculptures are now on display outside the Snowcastle.

Throughout the festival, attendees can vote on their favourite sculpture for the people’s choice award.

Meet the artists and their sculptures.

Three heads are better than one.

In Greek mythology, Cerberus is the three-headed hound of Hades who guards the gates of the underworld.

In Team Cyber Monkeys’ entry for the Snowkings’ carving symposium, Pet of the Underworld, Cerberus is a playful pup who has gone missing from the underworld.

The team hails from Estonia and is made up of captain Andres Rattasepp alongside his daughter Mari-Epp and teammate Enriko Saar. This is the team’s first time competing at the Yellowknife symposium.

Team Perkele, from Finland, is another new entrant to the competition, made up of captain Janne Andberg, Arto Manninen and Roope Lehmus.

Their entry, Vortex, features its creators being pulled into a swirling, snowy spiral.

“When time is ripe and wintery art cries its call, anything can happen as artists plunge together into maelstrom of creativity and let stream of consciousness carry them around the world,” reads the sculpture’s plaque.

“It is a tempest inviting its spectator into flux.”

Team Sundogs’ otherworldly entry, titled Trip Around the Sun, features an astronaut who was “sent to the other world to check on the rotation of the Sun.”

The team, which won the peoples’ choice award at last year’s symposium for its entry Wooley, is made up of captain Larry MacFarlane from Manitoba, Manoj Khorudharry from Ottawa, and Cliff Vacheresse from Edmonton.

More: Yellowknife’s snow sculptures, 2025 edition

Team Fjord Witches (Rad-A-Dass) won the people’s choice award at the 2023 competition and features captain Joelle Gagnon and Marie-Claude Paris-Tangyay from Quebec alongside Eugene Gagnon from the NWT.

The team’s entry in this year’s symposium, titled Souffle De Vie or Breath of Life, features a whale bursting through the ice and is described as “a moment suspended between two worlds.” The team said the whale is a symbol of wisdom, strength and deep consciousness that holds the world’s memories.

“She wants to teach us the importance of staying in tune with cycles and integrating them into our own lives. She guides us along our life’s path and helps us explore the depths of our soul,” the team wrote

Team Les Bouche-Trous say their sculpture, Melting Innocence, “freezes a moment of horror: innocence undone by nature’s inevitable fire.”

The piece depicts a snowman with half of his body melted away, revealing a skeleten beneath while “a terrified snow child” clings on to the remaining snow.

The team is made up of Chris Denis from Edmonton, this year’s Snowcastle lead builder Martin Rehak – who has the Snowcastle moniker King Marty One Boot – and Phillippe Deslandes, a Snowcastle builder known as Eveready Frost.

Did somebody say popcorn?

Team Three Hungry Dads’ entry, Pop, is a single popped popcorn with a couple of kernels beside it.

The team is composed of Joel Maillet from Prince Edward Island, Snowcastle ice slide architect and builder Ryan McCord – or Sir Joe Snow – and Graham Henning from Ontario.

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man.

Team Barcelona Forever’s entry, Tom, is inspired by Antoine de Saint-Expuery’s novella Le Petit Prince or The Little Prince.

The sculpture imagines an older Little Prince named Tom who, exiled, has grown up in an urban centre in the west while trying not to lose his poetic integrity.

“It is sometimes difficult to survive in certain cities, in certain destinations,” the team wrote.

“Here, we try to show the crows that nest in the bowels of his music, a minimal full moon that serves as a window, the bottle, the cigarette, and the downtown train that always arrives with Tom at the helm.”

The team, which competed in the Yellowknife competition for the first time last year and represents Barcelona, Spain, includes captain Emiliano Lorenzo Vicente, Josu Ruiz and Dario Reina.

Team The Board says its entry, Perspective, which resembles a large eye from the outside, highlights “the individuality of the human perspective.”

“The diversity of our views and interpretations enriches everyone around us,” the team wrote.

“Respect and tolerance for all perspectives takes patience and understanding. Take the time and put in the effort to see things from a different perspective.”

Team The Board is made up of Bruce Peck from Texas, Abe Waterman from PEI and Yellowknifer Cat McGurk.

Team Snow Spirit is made up of captain Patricia Leguen from Saskatchewan and Zuzana Riha from British Columbia.

Leguen and John Sabourin from Yellowknife won last year’s artists’ choice award for their entry Phoenix.

This year, the team’s sculpture – titled Winter Sky or Ciel D’Hiver – features a giant snowy owl surrounded by the northern lights with a lemming in its claws.

You can read several facts about snowy owls on the sculpture’s sign, including that:

• males of the species tend to be pure white while females have extensive flecks of dark brown;
• many snowy owls overwinter in the Arctic;
• the birds’ wingspan can reach six feet; and
• their favourite prey is lemmings, which they swallow whole.

Correction: March 11, 2026 –21:45 MT. This story initially stated Team Snow Spirit was made up of Patricia Leguen, John Sabourin and Zuzana Riha. In fact, while Leguen and Sabourin made up the team in 2025, this year’s team is made up of Leguen and Riha.