TECUMSEH, Mich. — With a fresh coat of snow creating a picturesque winter atmosphere, the city of Tecumseh is ready to welcome hundreds of visitors this weekend for its annual Ice Sculpture Festival.
Each participating downtown business will showcase an ice sculpture created by Napoleon, Ohio-based Ice Creations. Marketing and Events coordinator for the city of Tecumseh Rhonda Nowak said creativity is what makes the event so unique.
"We want the businesses to be creative with what the sculptures are, if I give them a theme it kind of puts them into a narrow pocket," Nowak said. "Whereas if I say 'You tell me what you want,' we get a lot of variety. Which is really what makes it interesting."
Local businesses also plan to offer some deals during the festival.
Unique experiences include watching live carving competition, joining in on judging the sculptures and checking out the Michigan Avian Experience.
To ensure that all of the visitors see all 52 ice sculptures, they can participate in a scavenger hunt that wants you to identify individual details on each sculpture.
"So they'll go through all 52 to find the ones that are on the list. They can turn that list in to us, and then we have a drawing afterwards for $250 to $300 gift card packet," Nowak said.
If you need help recovering from the cold, many of the downtown shops will be offering hot chocolate inside their shops while you thaw out and check out what they're selling.
Jan Fox owns multiple shops in downtown Tecumseh including Grey Fox Floral, a florist's shop. She said she was looking forward to celebrating the festival at her shop.
"We're having our signature white hot chocolate, and then we'll also have some chocolate goodies and some other stuff too," she said. "So, come in and get warmed up a bit and then head back out to go see the rest of the sculptures."
Nowak said the colder weather was a benefit for the event.
"We're really thankful that we're going to have cold enough weather we're not going to have to worry about that melting ice when it comes off, and the ice sculptures will last a long time, which is usually about two weeks," Nowak said. "So we leave them up as long as they're still in good condition we do leave them up so people can see them afterwards."
The 15th Annual Tecumseh Ice Sculpture Festival is Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. For more information including a map of the festival, visit the Downtown Tecumseh website at this link.