During the last few years the warmer climate in Greenland has led to cancellations of the festival due to a lack of snow, but this is happily not the case this year:

- Nuuk has had a lovely cold winter this year and fortunately we've had a lot of snow and are now ready to hold this year's snow festival. We're banking on the weather staying cold and that we'll continue to see even more snow, says the hopeful organiser, Flemming Nicolaisen.

No teams from abroad this year
During the course of the festival, Nuuk's inhabitants can follow the competing teams as they saw, chop and shape their way towards the unique snow sculptures. Unfortunately, it does not look like there will be any teams from abroad this year due to some uncertainty as to whether the snow festival would actually take place.



However, this will not prevent the local teams that are taking part from producing the traditional snow sculptures, which are often inspired by myths and legends, whilst others are non-figurative. Furthermore, because all of the works must be original, the results in both genres are often exciting and experimental.

In the evening the snow sculptures are lit up, which emphasises the shapes and proportions of the sculptures with highly contrasting shadows. On the fourth day of the festival, prizes are awarded at the traditional closing ceremony.

Nuuk Snow Festival was held for the first time in 1994 and February or March have since been chosen as the festival months due to the fact that there is normally lots of snow and fantastic frosty and sunny weather at this time of the year.

You can find more information about Nuuk Snow Festival from organiser Nuuk Tourism at www.snow.gl or by contacting info@nuuk-tourism.gl.

This year the snow festival will be held in the period 20 - 23 March 2008.