Marc Lepire, Chief Constructor of the Bonhomme’s Ice Palace speaks with Bonhomme Carnaval at the ice palace during the Quebec Winter Carnival in Quebec City, on Feb. 12, 2023.MATHIEU BELANGER/The Globe and Mail
“Would you like to see me dance?” Without waiting for an answer, Bonhomme Carnaval, the rotund snowman mascot, leaps into the air and kicks his heels, his jaunty performance backlit by the crystalline glow of the morning sun through ice.
During a visit last February, Bonhomme danced for visitors under the looming walls of his ice palace, built across the street from the Quebec Legislature with 2,700 blocks of hand-crafted ice. It’s a routine this beloved character will perform over and over again as Carnaval celebrates its 70th anniversary this week and runs until Feb 11. The French- and English-speaking snowman is as revered as Santa Claus in Quebec. Families will line up outdoors in freezing temperatures for photos and a warm hug, and his ice palace home is the headquarters for all the annual festival’s bone-chilling fun.
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Keeping a close eye on the icy blocks for the past 11 years is Bonhomme’s castle designer and creator Marc Lepire, 50.
During Carnaval, he’s always dressed for working in -10 C: heavy boots, construction-grade snowpants, thick Carhartt hoodie, black toque and – most important – his chainsaw, customized for use on ice and snow. Lepire, who has designed and built Bonhomme’s ice castle since 2013, was particularly proud of the arched gothic doorway to last year’s castle. “This is my favourite part because for the first time we stacked ice sideways, so it looks like a real stone door. It was very fun to do.” For this year’s 70th celebration, he’s added a second floor to the palace for the first time.
The ice palace is pictured during the Quebec Winter Carnival in Quebec City in 2023.MATHIEU BELANGER/The Globe and Mail
He jokes around with the mascot and poses for photographs but he’s always got one eye on the ice. Lepire prefers making his own for the palace and special carvings. “Inside the ice there is no air, that’s why it’s so clear, and that’s why it melts so much slower.” Bubbles in the ice magnify the sunlight’s warmth.
“If you carve [ice] from the lake or river there’s always a bit of sand, a bit of anything inside, the chisel gets very dull very fast.”
Lepire learned the ice trade from his father Michel Lepire, who died in 2018. Initially, his father worked as a maître d’hôtel, and carved ice centrepieces for ballroom receptions. By 1994, he had turned his hobby into a business and begun training the next generation.
Lepire at the ice palace during the Quebec Winter Carnival in Quebec City in 2023.MATHIEU BELANGER/The Globe and Mail
Lepire did his first ice carving at age 11. “I did Bonhomme Carnaval. … My dad took on too big a job and he said, ‘Marc, you don’t have a choice. The chainsaw is there, the chisel is there. Please can you help me?’ And I did.”
But the younger Lepire was drawn more to the mechanics of building with ice (“I love power tools,” he grins), and studied mechanical drafting in school. He still worked for his father on weekends and, after receiving his drafting licence, agreed to help him out for a few months in the busy season. “And then I never stopped. Five years after that, the Carnaval asked me to build the castle.”
“In the end we are different,” Lepire recalls, “because I prefer power tools and he prefers chisels. But the skills I have to carve? Everything is from my dad.”
Like his father, Lepire earned a reputation for his ice-building skill and has worked at winter festivals in Europe, China, Japan and Australia. He relishes the tricky requests: “A pillar needs to look like a real pillar of stone but in ice. But ice is not stone, eh? Stone doesn’t crack, but ice cracks. We need to know how to build it and I know how to do it.”
The 2023 Hotel de Glace in Valcartier, Que., in 2023.Anne-Marie Desmarais/Supplied
Lepire never minds that his art does not last long. “The fun part of being an artist is not to watch but the doing,” he says. Ice “is ephemeral. If it’s for a buffet it is only for six hours. If it is for outside it [lasts] maximum one month. And I can do it again and again and again.”
In the 10 days it takes to build Bonhomme’s palace, Lepire works with a small crew of builders but not because he’s worried others will steal his secrets: “Cold hands, cold feet playing with water and ice. … Not a lot of people want to work with me because they know, minus 10, minus 20, I have to be outside,” he says with a laugh.
Guy-Olivier Deveau, 40, is an exception. He may have begun by carving intricate castles on the sandy beaches of the Magdalen Islands, but when he came to Quebec to study at Laval University, ice carving caught his attention (and paid the bills). “I fell into it,” he says. “I met with Lepire and they took me under their wing. I started as a helper and I moved up the ladder.”
Chainsaws, chisels and a lot of snow and ice come together to create a unique (and cold) hotel experience in Valcartier, Quebec, where the Hôtel de Glace, or Ice Hotel, is reimagined every year. Here’s an inside look at how the famous frozen hotel came together over a six-week period in 2023. Camera by Anne-Marie Desmarais / Hôtel de Glace
Anne-Marie Desmarais
This year he is wielding his chisels, chainsaws and die grinders within Bonhomme’s palace, creating figures for the ice-sculpture garden and as the artistic director for Hôtel de Glace in nearby Valcartier. Here spellbinding carvings created by Deveau and his team warm the hearts of visitors to its frozen rooms and glittering ice bar. The ice hotel, about a 25-minute drive from downtown Quebec, stays open until March, offering basic snow rooms with plain walls, to suites featuring intricate scenes carved into the walls and ceilings and magically lit for effect.
During last year’s Carnaval, Deveau was on a deadline but paused briefly to chat. He clambered down from the knee of an immense snow robot he was working on just outside the palace. “For this one,” he pointed back with a heavily gloved hand wielding a small chainsaw, “we were hired over three days. For ice sculpting in the streets and all the areas of the city, we were pretty much doing one a day.”
Deveau was dressed in thick layers on this -12 C day, and admitted he prefers working with sand during international competitions in warmer climates, but also said he will always come back to Carnaval. “I really like the change of pace that comes with the seasons.”
If you go
Carnaval celebrates its 70th year with returning events such as the canoe race on the frozen St. Lawrence River, nighttime street parades, ice-sculpture gardens and new thrills that allow visitors to try the competitive skating sport of “ice cross” on a 100-square-foot rink. This year, three hilly streets in the provincial capital will be closed to traffic and turned into massive ice slides; visitors can also play nighttime laser tag in the Citadel and on Jan. 27, the icy glam of a Carnival masquerade ball returns to the Chateau Frontenac. Bonhomme’s palace opens to the public Feb 2. Entrance to many activities is free if you purchase a Bonhomme tag (or “effigy” as it’s known) for $30, and attach it to your winter coat. Visit carnaval.qc.ca
The writer travelled as a guest of Quebec City tourism. It did not review or approve the story before publication.