Can You Help Us Solve The Mystery Of These 15 McCall Winter Carnival Snow Sculptures?

Winter in McCall is always beautiful, for three days every year the small mountain town becomes even more magical when beautiful snow sculptures appear all over town! 

Of course, the three days we're talking about is that special time of the year known as McCall Winter Carnival. This year's "Carnival in Paradise" themed event is happen February 21-23.

Last year, organizers made a big change, condensing the events that normally took place over 10-days down to a single weekend. They also moved it from the end of January to the end of February. A lot of thought and input went into the decision to change such a beloved event.

After doing some extensive research, the McCall Chamber determined that a shorter event would feel less like a burden for their small business owners who didn't have enough staff to handle the town's normal population of less than 4,000 ballooning to 60,000 throughout the festival. During their research, they discovered that some businesses opted to close, rather than offer service below their normal standards due to being inadequately staffed.

We attended the shorter festival last year and can confirm the format works, especially because they kept all the important events like the Mardi Gras Parade, live music, beer garden, fireworks over Payette Lake and of course...the snow sculptures!

The snow sculptures aren't just works of art, they're also part of the local snow sculpture competition where the artists can score a pretty good chunk of change! Last year prize winners won anywhere from $500-$2,000 for their creations. There are two categories: professional and employee built/amateur.

A Shortened Event Makes the Snow Sculptures Better

In the festival's old format, we usually attended during the second weekend due to conflicts with the Canyon County Kids Expo. We may have just had bad luck, but three of the years we went, McCall had gotten rain or warm temperatures during the week causing the snow sculptures to look well...kind of sad by the time we got to town. It was still a blast and we always love playing a game of "what did this sculpture used to be?"

We found these 15 Winter Carnival photos in an old iPhone and looking back, they were mysteries that we never solved. Did you happen to go the first weekend that year? Can you PLEASE tell us what they were?