Art below freezing
Ice Castle brings new winter activities to Eden Prairie
January 17, 2015
Standing on top of the ice castle, site manager Blake Hawbaker shivers as he picks up his ice axe, counts to three and starts pounding the ice.
After allowing more water to freeze on the structure each night, workers pound the newly frozen areas to create walkways for people to experience the castle.
The sculpture, brought to Minnesota by Utah-based company Ice Castles LLC, made its debut Jan. 9.
According to Hawbaker, 20 million pounds of ice were used in the making of the Ice Castle, located in Eden Prairie’s Miller Park.
“It’s been six weeks of building with ice, and we’ve been out here planning since October. It’s 20 feet now, but we’re growing,” Hawbaker said.
Built by hand, the castle required more than 5,000 icicles each day, according to Hawbaker.
“We run almost two miles of water lines under the ice. There’s about 60 sprinkler heads, which is how we get that icicle look,” Hawbaker said. “We’re just trying to push our personal best.”
The castle is an unusual hangout place to go with friends, according to Hawbaker.
“You can take your senior picture here, and it’s a great place for a date. We see a lot of couples,” Hawbaker said.
Freshman Laura Moforngu said she would love to go, despite the winter weather.
“Making a castle with ice is a beautiful sight, even though I like summer more than winter, seeing all the ice sculptures is beautiful,” Moforngu said.
The Ice Castle also offers other activities for visitors such as fire performances by trained artists, “Frozen” characters, stargazing and food vendors.
“We have a princess here. She looks like the one from ‘Frozen’. We also have guys that come in and do fire performances,” Hawbaker said.
Sophomore Mawardi Ali said she would be thrilled to go to the Ice Castle.
“I would really like to go because I think it would make me feel like I’m in ‘Frozen’,” Ali said.
Freshman Madeleine Deforge also said she would like to go see the other activities the ice castle has to offer.
“I’ve never seen a fire performance before, so it’d be awesome to see one,” Deforge said.
The Ice Castle is open seven days a week, with $9.95 admission on weekdays and $12.95 on weekends.
