Transforming ice into art: The work behind Saranac Lake’s ice palace

Artists use both old and new ice carving methods to craft annual winter carnival tradition

By Tom French
The modern-day ice carvers creating Saranac Lake’s annual ice palace in time for winter carnival each year are artists with power saws who follow the guidance of an illustrator named “Doc.”
“There was a guy trying to do a carving, and I said, ‘Do you need some help?’ So, I got my equipment, came back, and started carving,” said John Ward, who joined the crew in 2017.

Ward retired from Saranac Lake High School as an art teacher in 2015 after 30 years. “The kids gave me the nickname, “Doc,” and it stuck.” He’s illustrated children’s books, national magazines and U.S. Coast Guard material hung in the Capitol and around the world. For ice sculpting, Ward said, “You take your artistic and sculpting skills and use a chainsaw instead of a knife with clay.” Ward has recruited many former students for carving at the winter carnival. “They’re all professional artists now.”

Sara Mazdzer, a 2010 graduate of Saranac Lake High School, holds a BFA in sculpture from the Pratt Institute and works in New York City designing interior spaces and art finishes for luxury retail stores such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Tiffany. She also creates sculptures on commission. Her “Ephemeral Feeling, 2014,” a 15-foot metal luger, hangs in the Big Slide Brewery and Public House in Lake Placid. Ward reached out to his former student to join in the art for the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival and Mazdzer soon owned two chainsaws. Growing up, she had hoped to pursue a career in dance, but was fascinated by the sculptures on the Plattsburgh College campus. “I really wanted to know how those were made. I tried to take a welding class freshman year, but was steered away—traditional gender roles, I guess. But I was persistent and enrolled the following fall semester sophomore year.”

After a hip injury when she was 17, she sought another creative outlet. “I figured if I can’t dance, I might as well go full steam ahead into art. Doc helped me get confident enough to do the welding program. I don’t think any women or girls had done welding shop before me at the high school. He put it on my radar and pushed me and has been instrumental in my art career.” In addition to the Big Slide Brewery installation, Mazdzer has several pieces in private collections around the Adirondacks and over a dozen in New York City.

Ward explained the first step for creating a sculpture is piling a number of blocks into place. “The blocks weigh up to 600 pounds, so we slide them out of the bucket loader and put them where we want, jockeying them around with big pry bars to get them all flush and in place. Then we start carving. We did a Bigfoot or Sasquatch a few years back. I can’t tell you how many blocks he was, but if he had stood up like a real person, he’d have been 10-feet tall.”

He recruited former student Shawn Rohe at the grocery store. The 2000 Saranac Lake graduate and alumnus of St. Lawrence University is a freelance artist with extensive experience gilding gold leaf onto boat transoms. He also works as a private chef. His clients have included Tom Cruise and high-end CEOs.

Rohe recalled avoiding a dinosaur tail and thigh when they collapsed his first year. “The ice can be brittle. But what’s the worst that happens. It looks good in July.” Mazdzer said she’s seen ice carving competitions and ice carving companies in New York City that prepare and freeze huge blocks of ice in very cold temperatures. “That ice is super clear, almost glass-like, for swans at banquets. Lake ice is inconsistent. It’s completely Mother-Nature made. If it gets warm, whatever snow was on top melts a little bit. Then at night, it freezes. So, there’s a very cloudy soft layer, and then it freezes. It’s all these different layers, like a cake.”

“It’s usually the weather that gets us,” Ward said. “We did the dinosaurs and they looked beautiful. Two days later, it was 40 degrees and rain. One of the heads just melted off and it was gone.”

Related reading: How to build an ice palace

Every year, the team carves interactive sculptures that people can climb into for pictures. In 2022, the team fashioned the DeLorean time machine from “Back to the Future.” 2020’s myths and legends theme involved flying saucers. Last year’s “Creepy Carnival” featured spooky bumper cars crashing into each other.

“Each big sculpture has many collaborators,” Ward said. The DeLorean and the Flying Saucer each had a team of at least five. Mazdzer recalled her joy in making a triceratops and “bringing it to life.” Warmer temperatures from climate change may make ice carving go the way of the dinosaurs. A year may arrive when it won’t be safe to harvest ice from Lake Flower’s Pontiac Bay. “I’m going to try to do it as much as I can until then,” Mazdzer said.

Top photo: Sara Mazdzer uses a custom die grinder with special ice carving bit on a “Back to the Future” DeLorean time machine for the 2022 Saranac Lake Winter Carnival. Photo by Kate Mazdzer