Feb 1, 2008 11:14 pm US/Central
Two Tinkerers Take On Icy Challange: Ice-Cropolis
(WCCO)
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The two men spent months trying to figure out how to make a hollowed-out eight foot column of ice stand up on a frozen Lake of the Isles.
CBS
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This is what the columns look like when they are lit up.
CBS
It is a
part science, part history, and part art project for two Minneapolis tinkerers.
Hal Galvin
is an engineer. David Bryan is an architect.
Together,
the two spent months trying to figure out how to make a hollowed-out eight foot
column of ice stand up on a frozen Lake of the
Isles.
It's all part of the City of Lakes Loppet -- a cross
country ski race. The course includes Lake of
the Isles where the columns will stand.
Saturday, candles will light them from
the inside -- creating a beautiful light show on the lake.
However, making the art is not as
easy as it looks.
Every
attempt to make the columns at Bryan's Wisconsin cabin either leaked or fell over.
"I put
out an email to all of our volunteers saying that we could make (the columns) reliably and repeatedly, and we couldn't,"
Galvin laughed, "But we had faith ... and then, of course, there's duct tape."
Now, they
think they've finally succeeded, but won't know for sure until the cardboard
covering the ice columns comes off.
"I
know this is going to work," said a confident Galvin.
There are
30 columns in all, ranging from two to eight feet. They are placed in a
semicircle based on the Fibonacci code that sits on the west part of Lake of Isles. The men are calling it
Ice-Cropolis.
"It's
going to be kind of Grecian, I think," said Bryan.
Once the
cardboard comes off, volunteers will lower candles into the hollow-out column.
The effect
will be a beautiful light show when the candles are lit Saturday night.
"It
transitions into this incredible thing of lit columns," said Bryan, "It's going to
be fabulous."
The duo ran
into some trouble early on but a low-tech solution always gave them an answer.
White trash
bags would deflect the sun so the ice wouldn't melt. Duct tape would prevent
the water from bursting out of the bottom of the columns before it froze. And
they used Big Gulp cups to hollow out the columns.
This light
show is in addition to the hundreds of that have luminaries set up along the
course for the past few years.
"The
whole process has really been a kind of joy, just trying all this stuff out
getting to be outside in the winter time, it's a good way to celebrate the
winter," said Bryan.
You can see
the lit display on the west end of Lake of the
Isles Saturday night. Volunteers will begin lighting the candles at 5 p.m.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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