The story
Asahikawa Winter Festival in Asahikawa
The Asahikawa Winter Festival traces its informal origin to 1946, when local officials began shaping cleared snow into sculptures, before reemerging in its modern form in 1960. Held each February along the Ishikari River, it features some of the world's largest snow sculptures and, since 1973, the World Ice Sculpture Competition, Japan's only international ice carving contest.
The origin story of the Asahikawa Winter Festival is often traced to a practical problem rather than a grand cultural design: in January 1946, heavy snowfall had piled up so severely in the city that local police were struggling to keep roads passable.