The Sapporo Snow Festival, (Sapporo Yuki Matsuri), is short-lived. It is just seven days in late January or early to mid-February. Then all the models are reduced back to snow.
Sapporo the city was designed with the aid of British and American town planners. And as such it has lovely wide, straight boulevards, and a 330-foot-wide park runs east and west through the center of the city.
This is lined with lilac and acacia trees, which blend with green lawns and colorful beds of flowers in summer. However, it is a contrast in white in wintertime, and especially during the festival in snow.
This festival dates from about 1950.
As the festival grew larger, and has now become a major tourist attraction for the city. Each exhibit has a solid snow platform constructed and wooden scaffoldings are anchored into this base. These must be sturdy, as a thousand-ton avalanche of snow and ice can be dangerous to the viewer!
During the seven day festival, Sapporo is transformed into a glittering fairytale land of snow and ice sculptures large and small.
Over the years there have been many different themes and exhibits in snow. For the 1970 exhibition, ancient history was represented in a beautifully carved representation, forty-five feet high and one hundred feet broad, of the Abu-Simbel Rock Temple of Egypt, said to have been built by Ramses II in celebration of his conquest of the Sudan. This was complete with pharaohs, winged lions and hieroglyphics.
Modern history was featured at another exhibition site, where the visitor could make his 'first big steps' among craters of the moon, but with feet crunching snow instead of moon dust. Alongside, two snowman astronauts, a snow lunar module and a snow Apollo 11 rocket lent realism to the scene.
Odori Park - Sapporo's central park & playground hosts the artistic snow sculptures, the festival launch, and much of the live music and other entertainment. This section is open all day and illuminated each night. Two other sites are in use also - the Susukino site and the Satoland site.fest
