Saskatoon snow sculpture artist creates virtual hug for passersby

In the front yard of a home along Cumberland Avenue South in Saskatoon sits a little girl with long, curly hair, hugging her most precious teddy bear.

Except, this “little” girl is about seven-and-a-half feet tall and so is her teddy bear. They’re both made out of snow — the snow that fell for hours and piled up on city streets, sidewalks and in everyone’s yards in November, the same snow that prevented people from getting to work or back home again, or kept them housebound for days.

That snow was like gold to Saskatoon artist Theressa Wright and her husband Terry Ouellette. They didn’t just shovel it onto their front yard and leave it there. They waited until it became the consistency they needed. It was then piled and carefully carved into the happy child and her beloved toy for the whole city to drive by and enjoy.

Wright named her sculpture “Hugs.”

“We’ve had a lot of visitors and a lot of people coming by and they’re quite amazed,” Wright says. “They like the theme of the ‘Hugs’ too; it’s like a virtual hug. People are missing that.”

Wright has been creating her snow sculptures for the last 25 years and has travelled around the world competing.

“(I’ve) done the Quebec Carnival, I’ve been to Ottawa, Winnipeg Symposium, Edmonton, Harbin, China; Italy, and Kiruna, Sweden,” she said.

She has won several awards for her work, and misses travelling. But she decided if she couldn’t do that this winter, she’d create something at home to get outside, get some exercise and to stay creative.

The sculpture, which is illuminated at night, took Wright and her husband 50 hours over seven days to create. The snow was packed into a large block or form, and stomped down, she says, like she was “stomping on grapes.”

Even as they were creating it, though, some of the snow melted because of the recent warm weather.

“We had to let it set for a while because it got too warm,” Wright said. “It was plus-five and plus-seven. We lost about a foot in height as it melted, but it’s pretty icy and pretty solid.”

The sculpture will stay until it melts, or until Wright decides on another project. She says there’s still a lot of snow to work with, and she has lots of new ideas.