Coming up the weekend of January 13 will be the 29th annual Niles Hunter Ice Festival. It’s the biggest winter event in Niles each year, and Lisa Croteau with the Niles mainstreet program tells us they’re back this time with no COVID restrictions. The event features ice carvers from all over the country making art out of more than 32 tons of ice sponsored by local businesses. The ice carvers bring games with them.
“We’ve had Plinko, we’ve had Skee-Ball, we’ve had golf, we’ve had whatever their imagination brings to them to create any given year, and it’s always lots of fun,” Croteau said.
Croteau says it’s impressive to see what the ice artists can do.
“It’s truly phenomenal to watch them take a four foot by six inch by 20 inch block of ice and turn it into a work of art, but that’s what you see. We have truly been blessed with creative relationships with some of the best carvers in the country.”
Things kick off on Friday, January 13 with the Fire and Ice ceremony. A Frigid 5K Run will be at 9 a.m. Saturday, and there will be Ice Wars, or speed ice carving, Saturday night. Croteau says the Hunter Ice Festival attracts anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 people each year. It’s named in honor of Henry and Lemont Hunter, who owned the Hunter Ice Brothers Company in town in the late 1800s.
