Local team shines in international competition
March 28, 2013
Team USA Idaho/Bonners Ferry, third place finishers, and top U.S. finisher, in the week long debut event of the international Carve Tahoe Snow Sculpting competition.
Photo courtesy Lee Harris
Competing against some of the very best snow sculpting teams worldwide, Team USA Idaho/Bonners Ferry; Lee Harris, Winter Braden and Josh Knaggs, traveled to Lake Tahoe, California in February to compete in Carve Tahoe International Snow Sculpting Competition, a juried event held at Northstar California Resort, and came away with third place behind teams from Germany and Japan.

The winners, Team Germany; Friedemann Theil, Lothar Luboschik, and Detlef Schurtzmann, have been carving snow together for years, winning major events in Germany, the United States, Japan and China, as have Team Japan; Yoshimasa Tsuchida, Teruyasu Matsumura and Shin Ozaki.

The Bonners Ferry team had much less experience working together as a team, but they meshed well, carving a 20-ton block of snow to depict Kermode bears, also known as "spirit bears," a small subspecies of black bear that range along the British Columbia coast in which one in ten is born a creamy white color due to two recessive genes found only in that geographically isolated clan.

In their sculpture, which lasts only as long as temperatures stay cold, they depicted two Kermode bears laughing at humans trying to categorize them.

Harris, who also carves antler and stone and paints, has been a part of Bonners Ferry snow sculpting teams for years, bringing home numerous accolades. Braden, a Bonners Ferry High School graduate, is more known for his athletic than his artistic abilities. A standout runner in Badger track, he is now an extreme snowboarder, climber and world traveler.

Knaggs didn't graduate BFHS, but he's a popular and well-respected art teacher with a love of the outdoors. Specializing in mixed media painting and ceramics, he's an avid hiker, snowshoer, boater and rock climber.

Other teams in the competition included Team Finland, Team USA/California, Team USA/Canada, Team USA Idaho/Dunham and Team USA Wisconsin.

Judging was done not only by an eminent panel of experts, but by those who viewed the sculptures, which took a week to create before winners were announced February 13.

For a donation to the Sierra Avalanche Center, members of the public were able to cast a ballot, making the decisions reliant not only on professional artistic criteria, but popular support as well.

Carve Tahoe, to become an annual event, paid most of the expenses for each team selected to compete except transportation to and from the airport and parking. Team Bonners Ferry extends its appreciation to the Bonners Ferry Rotary Club for their donation to make the team's trip possible.

"We were very pleased with our effort," Harris said, "and happy to represent our town."