At this point, the last thing you want to hear about is snow, especially as the forecast for this week looks really ‘summery.’
But as the last snowflakes of the season fall in the mountains, one artist makes the most of every spring snowstorm.
Kim Asmussen, from Ontario, made the long trek to Banff with a blizzard of creativity ready to be used.
Asmussen is well known for crafting enormous, geometric, almost crop circle-like art pieces in fresh snow.
“The driving force for me more now is just the enjoyment people get out of looking at it,” Asmussen told the Rocky Mountain Outlook. “A lot of them are stuck inside in the wintertime, and it’s sort of something neat to see.”
His tool out choice for “painting” these pictures? Snowshoes.
Community Art
A now-retired school principal, he had dabbled in woodworking and ice sculpting for years. However, it wasn’t until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that he strapped on snowshoes and ventured out, using every step to create elaborate snow designs.
Now, there are usually many more steps involved in each project than just his own. Many interested community members are eager to lend a foot and often join him in packing down the drift.
This was certainly the case during his recent trip to Sunshine Village.
“I try to get it laid out ahead of time and then give them directions about where to walk and what to do,” he told Northern Wilds. “I like the social aspect of when you’re doing it with other people. You crisscross and stop and talk to them for a while, then keep on going.”
About 8 people assisted in his initial two-day project, in honour of the late Sunshine Village employee, and his old friend, Dwight Bergstrom.
“I called it “Bergie 2 Bucky” (his nickname). It can be an honour to those who skied and boarded and are gone, or to those that still enjoy it as part of their lifestyle.”
The design featured a flower of life, a beautiful design made up of 19 intersecting circles, featuring images of a skier and snowboarder on either side and Sunshine’s logo topping it off.
It was massive and required a whole lot of stomping.
“You have to figure out how to do it, where you’re not walking, where you’re not supposed to walk, but that’s the trickiest part of it,” said Asmussen.
In the design phase of making these art pieces, he uses AutoCAD, a precise design software, to map the exact measurements of where he needs to step and where to avoid.
“The neat thing is when they’re down on the ground, you don’t really have a grasp of what’s going on, and then when you take the drone up after to get the picture, they’re just awestruck at what it looks like,” he said.
However, the big reveal of this project was foiled by the one aspect of the design process Asmusmen can’t control – the weather.
As clouds rolled in on the project’s completion, the clouds obscured all the effort he and the volunteers had made before promptly covering their art with fresh snow. C’est la vie.
To make up for the foiled attempt, Asmussen went out early the next morning, creating a smaller design so the skiers would still get a little surprise from above.
While we may have missed out on seeing the full picture of his project this time, he’ll be back to try again.
In the meantime, you can keep up with his projects on Instagram, they are truly a sight to behold.
As we head into the summer season, they’ll all melt away, making room for Mother Nature’s more personal works of art. But Asmussen is giving us something to look forward to next year!
