AUBURN – An ice palace – the first of its kind in Maine – is part of the vision for the Auburn Winter Festival’s future.
Doug Beck, Auburn’s recreation superintendent, was involved during the festival’s inception in 2001 and has contributed to its growth since. Beck’s vision doesn’t stop with an ice palace. Toboggan rides, an ice-fishing derby and snowmobile events are likely in the future.
“This is our fifth year running. The only way to grow is to make this more than just a Lewiston and Auburn event,” Beck said. “From an event perspective, we try to start something new every year,” Beck said.
This year’s event was boosted by Saturday’s balmy weather as a large crowd enjoyed a smorgasbord of events during the Fifth Annual Winter Festival at the Lost Valley Ski Area.
Beck took a break after the children’s sled obstacle race. Temperatures approaching 50 degrees didn’t deter a large crowd of children with sleds, skiers and snowboarders who came to play in the snow. “When we were doing the Really Ridiculous (relay race), we could feel the heat coming off the slopes,” Beck said.
Whether the event involved participating in a human dog sled team in the Really Ridiculous Relay or shooting down the Bull Moose hill on the business end of a shovel, there was something for everybody.
The festival has grown every year. Beck said the festival could grow considerably with more people coming from away, creating a need for new and larger events. It has gradually attracted more people from out of the area. One man said he came to the festival from Boston. “Two months ago, we had a call from Florida, asking when it is,” Beck said.
He said he has studied the successes of ice palaces and ice houses that were built for winter carnivals in Minnesota and Quebec. “The Twin Cities used to do that,” Beck said, referring to photos in the Sun Journal’s archives from as much as a century ago and as recently as the 1940s.
The ideal location for an ice house or palace would be Central Maine Community College because of its proximity to Lake Auburn, Beck said.
He said he wants to start small next year, with a Cape Cod style farmhouse, and introduce larger ice structures each year, with a palace in the future. The farmhouse would be the size of an actual two-story cape.
“It’s the kind of event that would bring people together. Then we’d be doing something that nobody else in Maine is doing. Nobody is building ice houses or even ice outhouses,” Beck said. “A lot of folks that grew up here remember winter carnivals of old. People in Maine have a heritage of doing things with ice.”
The cost, Beck said, could top $100,000 with engineering costs included. “We would have to take a hard look at what ice palaces are in Minnesota and Quebec to get a handle on the scope of it,” he said. He said private sponsorship, volunteer labor, and fund-raising help from the Chamber of Commerce and other service organizations would be required.
He added that the Auburn Water District would also have to become involved in a project involving a large ice structure.
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