Saline hosting Snowman Building Contest of the Free World at first Winterfest
Participants in a contest in Saline will craft snowmen akin to this one, which was made during a similar event in St. Clair last year.
The marquee event will take place on Henne Field on Jan. 29 from 1-3 p.m. as part of Winterfest, a new Saline festival.
For the contest, 50 residents each from St. Clair, Zeeland, Sault Ste. Marie and Saline (all cities of similar size) will compete against each other in their respective communities and build as many 4-feet-tall snowmen as possible in a two-hour period said.
Art Trapp, Saline’s downtown development director. said he first got the idea while speaking to DDA directors from across the state. He hopes there will be enough interested Saline residents to field 10 teams of five members each to participate.
The snow from a 32-gallon trash can and a 20-gallon trash will be used for the two sections of the snowman body, and the snow from a smaller bucket will be used for the head.
There are no extra points for creativity, Trapp said; the snowmen just need to be four feet tall.
No mechanical devices are allowed to assist with snowman building, so he’s asking participants to bring their own shovels to fill the trash barrels. Each participant will get a special hat.
He thinks the participants might be able to build between 75-80 snowmen in the allotted two hours. And there’s a trophy for the winning city — an 18-inch wooden trophy is being carved by a member of an American Indian tribe.
Trapp said he will take the word of the mayor, city manager or another official in each city to determine which one emerges as the winner.
One city will build its snowmen on Jan. 28 and the other three will compete on Jan. 29.
“We’re been working very hard to see what we could get going in winter that has something for everyone,” said Glenn Law, one of the new festival’s organizers.
“I invite any able-bodied person to come out and enjoy the festival; it’s another way of the community coming together,” he said.
Law said winter is a season that should be celebrated outdoors and not spent inside. “We live through winter, why not make the best of it? Besides, winter always seems to get the short end of the stick.”
Besides the snowman-building event, Winterfest will feature several other family activities, including sled dog demonstrations, hay rides, ice carving, children's games and crafts, a snowmobile display, an ice skating demonstration and a 5 K race, on North and South Ann Arbor streets, at Henne Field, city parking lot No. 1 and the east side of lot No. 4. Several Red Wings alumni are also expected to sign autographs.
There's only one thing that might mess up the plans: the weather.
“We’ve been looking at having a winter event and we think this will be really fun. The only thing will be the weather; it’s hard to plan for that,” said Gretchen Driskell, Saline’s mayor.
But Trapp said he has done everything possible to pick the best possible January date.
In researching the weather for Jan. 29 for the last 150 years, he found that two-thirds of the time, the temperature was below 32 degrees.
Residents who want to be part of the snowman-building contest can call Trapp at 734-604-0051.
Lisa Allmendinger is a reporter for AnnArbor.com. She can be reached at lisaallmendinger@annarbor.com. For more Saline stories, visit our Saline page.
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