A snow carver from Yellowknife says “art is inherently political” after returning from a competition where a sculpture was destroyed for its political message.
Cat McGurk attended the World Snow Sculpting Championship in Stillwater, Minnesota, for the third time earlier this winter.
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McGurk’s team first entered a sculpture in the competition in 2023. In 2023, the team’s entry was inspired by the NWT’s 2023 wildfire season. This year, the team, which represented New Zealand, entered a snow sculpture featuring rats feasting on a fish skull.
Sixteen teams from across the globe competed in the 2026 event.
A sculpture titled A Call to Arms by a team representing the USA was disqualified from the competition and destroyed.
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“It was very difficult to hear because typically, when a sculpture is breaking the rules, the consequences are simply just being removed from the competition. They are not torn down,” McGurk said.
“It’s a very violent act, especially considering the tone.”
Cat McGurk shared this photo of Team USA’s A Call to Arms taken before it was destroyed.
The sphere-shaped sculpture featured outreached hands, some of which spelled words and phrases in American Sign Language including “love,” “unity,” “resist” and “ICE out,.”
Stillwater is located about 35 minutes from Minneapolis, where federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, commonly known as ICE, were involved in the high-profile fatal shootings of two residents earlier this year.
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Competition organizers told the Pioneer Press Team USA had not complied with rules that require entrants to adhere to their submitted sketches and ensure sculptures “respect cultural and social values, and avoid controversial, political or inappropriate themes.”
Around the same time that Team USA’s sculpture in Stillwater was dismantled, a separate snow sculpture was disqualified for its anti-ICE message at the Minnesota State Snow Sculpting Competition in nearby St Paul.
That sculpture featured a blindfolded face with a whistle and the words “ICE OUT MN” etched into it. The artists behind the sculpture said someone defaced it, destroying the whistle and removing the anti-ICE message.
McGurk said while some snow sculpting competitions prohibit political messages, those rules can be challenging as “art is inherently political.”
“Especially in sculpture, which I find more of a conversation than other art forms, it’s hard to keep that out,” McGurk said, noting that sculptures are large, public and create conversations.
“You see political sculpture all the time. I think people just kind-of do it in a quiet way.
“It’s hard to make art that isn’t passionate and comes from inside you and is emotional, and it’s hard not to bring your thoughts into something that is passionate.”
Cat McGurk works on a wooden sculpture at Folk on the Rocks. Serra Hamilton/Cabin Radio
McGurk said they will be hesitant to re-enter the snow sculpting competition in Stillwater unless expectations and consequences for breaking the rules are more clearly defined. They said they can’t support sculptures being destroyed.
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“While it’s temporary art, to remove something before its time is not a good thing.”
In a statement late last month, the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce apologized for how the situation was handled, stating that “in a fast-moving and emotionally charged moment, our response did not fully reflect our shared values.” The chamber said it was committed to learning from what happened.
“Leadership is not about perfection,” the statement continued. “It is about the humility to pause, reflect and adjust when something does not land as intended.”
Correction: February 8, 2026 – 3:00 MT. A previous version of this story stated Cat McGurk’s team first entered a sculpture in the 2024 World Snow Sculpting Championship. In fact, the team first entered the competition in 2023.
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