The event is recognized as the largest of its
kind in the world.
The Festival officially lasts for one month, but
with winter temperatures in the city averaging
a bone-chilling minus 17C, many of the
sculptures remain in place for considerably
longer than that.
The sculptures are formed either from
compacted snow, or from blocks of ice which
are hauled out of the nearby Songhua River.
Purified water is also used, - frozen into
blocks of clear ice. Many of the sculptures are
illuminated to add another dimension to the
displays during the long hours of darkness at
this time of the year.
The Festival began in 1963 but it was only
held sporadically, because of the upheaval
during the Cultural Revolution. It became a
regular event in 1985.
In 2001 the Harbin Ice Festival was merged
with the Heilongjiang International Ski
Festival, to become the event we know today.
In 2007, a sculpture celebrating the work of a
revered Canadian doctor, Norman Bethune,
was recognised as the world’s largest ice
sculpture. Featuring both Niagara Falls and
the Bering Strait, it measured 250m in length
and 8.5m in height. A total of 13,000 cubic
metres of snow was used in its construction.
Lions might be the kings of the jungle, but crocodiles rule the river. At least most of the time. That wasn’t the case in a video shared by Kruger Sightings the other day. It shows a young lion crossing a river and getting blindsided by a crocodile. A woman in the background can be heard saying, “Oh my God; oh my God,” just before the inevitable. But it has a happy ending: A happy ending for the lion, that is. The crocodile’s next meal would have to wait. The footage was captured by a tourist while standing on the H10 bridge near the Lower Sabie River in the Kruger National Park in South Africa. “All we can say is, lions should always look both [ways] before crossing the river,” Kruger Sightings said on Facebook
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