Despite the 20-degree weather, Kate Fuller and Kevin Michael couldn’t wait to get their hands on the ice.

As students at the Kirkwood Culinary Arts School at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Fuller and Michael took instructions from Dave Dettman on how to make snowflake ice sculptures as part of the Winterfest in Amana, Iowa.

One of four major festivals at Amana, Winterfest began only three years ago, said Brenda Koehler, co-chair of the festival and manager of the Amana Society Main Street Complex.

“Winterfest really grew out of the hopes to create something to promote the Amana Colonies in the winter months and to let people know there are more things than shopping,” she said.

The Amana Colonies comprise seven tiny villages: Amana, Middle Amana, West Amana, East Amana, South Amana, High Amana and Homestead. The people came from Germany in the 1840s to seek freedom of religion. Amana, which means “remain true,” is significant because they believe in the speaking of tongues.

Winterfest is a one-day event that includes many holiday favorites like the ice sculpting contest by the Culinary Arts students. Dettman said he and his students enjoy doing ice sculpting at festivals because it’s a chance to practice outside of the classroom. The process of ice sculpting is lengthy and can take hours depending on the weather, he said.

First, students receive a block of ice that costs $80, Dettman said. Then, they water down the front of the block to attach the template paper that Dettman designed himself.

“You literally are gluing it down so you can carve it,” he said.

Once the students have used an etching tool on the template, they use a chainsaw to cut away the rough edges, Dettman said. When the snowflake has taken form, the last step is to emboss the front with a handful of wet snow. The snow helps to create a textured look to the snowflake.
Dettman said he enjoys ice sculpting because it allows him to play with a different side of art.

“[On] the culinary end of art there are a lot of different dimensions, and you have a lot of other mediums of food like chocolate and sugar,” he said.

While Dettman instructed his students, residents and visitors participated in the log-sawing contest.

Jacki Klaas gripped one end of the large-toothed saw as her husband, Gary, grabbed the other. They sank into a push-and-pull rhythm until the end of the log fell off cleanly.

As the winners of the log-sawing contest for the three years of Winterfest, they actually didn’t know a thing about log sawing.

“Whatever we did that first year, we just did it right,” Jacki Klaas said. “It started out that Gary and I said one year, ‘Let’s do it,’ and then our friends got involved, and it became a competition.”

For those who wanted warmth from the cold, they could join the scavenger hunt. The game united Amana as 21 of the businesses got involved with the event, Koehler said.

Visitors and residents have to visit 10 businesses, locate the clue and have an employee sign their sheet. Clues included “Instead of using this for fishing, we use it for making blankets,” and “What kind of candy is made in our copper kettle and stirred for an hour with a wooden paddle?”

“It’s very educational, and we use it to expose the history,” Koehler said.

Once finished with getting 10 businesses to initial their sheets, participants received a coupon for a free cookie and were entered into a drawing for a free Amana gift basket.

Koehler said almost every business participated in one of two events: the scavenger hunt or the wine tour. The seven wineries in main Amana had a separate contest in which participants received a card and toured all seven wineries to get the card punched. Once the wine-tasters finish their cards, they receive a complementary wine glass with a winter Amana logo.

While others braved the cold in the outside activities, Shirley Graham and her daughter, Terri, stayed warm in the Amana Woolen Mill. Both held strands of different types of wool and demonstrated the old-fashioned method of spinning. Behind them stood the large wool-spinning machines that create and spiderweb of pink-, purple- and yellow-dyed wool.

Shirley said she began spinning before Terri was even born because the process interested her.

“I couldn’t find good wool, and I heard about spinning,” she said.

She taught Terri the craft, and both women have been demonstrating the art at festivals for 20 years.

Shirley said spinning begins with a type of wool like sheep, alpaca, dog or camel. After it’s sheared from the animal and washed, the spinner takes two large hairbrush-like paddles to “card” the wool, which means brushing it to get out dirt and straw, she said. Then, the spinner rolls the wool off the paddles and begins spinning it.

Terri said it usually takes her about four hours at festivals to spin one bobbin of wool. She also makes tiny teddy bears out of wool. Usually she takes the wool from people’s dogs to make them a keepsake after their dog dies. She also makes them out of sheep, alpaca, camel and buffalo wools.
One unique part of Terri’s spinning includes Kool-Aid.

“I dye the wool with Kool-Aid because it’s non-toxic,” she said. “I have problems with allergies, so it’s great.”

Also using the name brand instead of other brands helps make the dye a stronger color, she said.

“It doesn’t wash out or fade, and it’s good for the environment,” Terri said.

She offered tips to dye wool: First, put the wool and Kool-Aid in water and let sit in the sun for a couple days. This method is like making sun tea, Terri said. Another method she suggested was to put the dye and wool in a pot with water and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

Educational events like the wool spinning demonstrations and the scavenger hunt offer insight to the Amana history and education, but events like the eagle watch and cross-country skiing promote more healthy outdoor activities, Koehler said.

“We try and make Winterfest really more about education and more about outdoor things and history,” she said.

One way she said they promote the outdoors is by opening the golf course for the cross-country skiing contest and having the eagle watch by the lake.

But the big attraction is the Amana Freezer 5K Run/Walk, and the event is the best way to gauge the success of the festival, Koehler said.

“This is the smallest of all the festivals, but it’s still very well attended,” she said.

Weather also is key to the success of the festival, and this year’s cold and snowy weather beat the rain from last year, Koehler said.

“The first year was perfect – sunny but no wind,” she said.

Koehler said she was in charge of advertising for the festival this year and decided to expand beyond print to the radio to reach a slightly larger area.

“We advertise in a 100-mile radius because winter pulls people closer in a smaller diameter,” she said.

With the main events in main Amana, Koehler said uniting the villages for the smaller festivals is harder than for the larger ones like Oktoberfest.

“One of the biggest struggles is to have all the colonies in one festival,” she said. “… One of our goals for next year is to try and include the outer colonies.”

Photos by Lindsay Koski