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Ryan Hill was a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) sculptor from Six Nations of the Grand River who thought big; his ice carving Pegasus at the 2019 Winterlude exhibition in Ottawa measured nearly three metres tall.
Hill died of a heart attack last year at age 50 and he’s set to be honoured at Winterlude with the return of the Ice-Carving Public Challenge, this year carrying his name.
“It just comes out when he’s working on the world stage there in Ottawa with all the carvers,” his sister Jacqueline Hill recalled.
“His thinking was very big.”
His friends and family hope this year’s challenge in his honour inspires people to remember his work and learn the craft themselves.
A carver in wood and stone, he first entered the ice-carving public challenge in 2013 and won. He went on to become part of the international ice-carving community.
Jacqueline Hill said her younger brother’s skills were nurtured by both of their parents.
“We would be out in the snow and he’s the one who made all the tunnels in the snow,” she said.
“We would always be building some sort of little maze.”
Ryan Hill’s team won first place in the Winterlude ice-carving public challenge in 2013. (Submitted by Chris Dainty)
She said their father made wooden lacrosse sticks and gave Ryan tools to start whittling as soon as he was old enough to handle them.
Corrine Hill, Ryan’s widow, said she’s honoured the challenge is commemorating her late husband’s work and said she and Ryan’s family will attend.
“He wasn’t afraid to take risks in life … and he wanted to be an inspiration to everybody,” she said.
‘He’ll be greatly missed’
Chris Dainty, president of the Canadian Ice Carvers Society of Canada (CICS), was Ryan’s sculpting partner for many years.
Dainty said Winterlude was where Ryan got his start in the public challenge and met other ice carvers from around the world, a small tight-knit community where he fit right in.
What made Ryan a great ice carver, he said, was his background in stone and wood carving. Dainty said Ryan’s cultural knowledge was enriching for the members of the CICS.
“He brought that knowledge and that insight and shared it with us,” Dainty said.
“He was always sharing his different carvings that he had done. He brought so much artistry to ice carving.”
They created Pegasus together in 2019 from 18 blocks of ice, weighing 136 kilograms each.
Ryan Hill with his long time ice-carving partner Chris Dainty. (Submitted by Chris Dainty)
Dainty said working on that scale is challenging.
“It’s a real construction site,” he said.
Using water to fuse the blocks together, they wanted Pegasus to be as big and tall as possible.
Dainty said the most dangerous part of ice sculpting on this scale is the final phase when the supports are cut away because the ice is so heavy and there’s a risk it may topple over.
“You hope that you’ve supported it enough that you can make it defy gravity to a certain extent — that the ice is cold enough that everything sticks,” he said,
Dainty said if you were at Winterlude in the past 12 years you would have seen Ryan’s work.
“It was really wonderful to carve with him. He’ll be greatly missed in this first Winterlude without him,” he said.
Dainty said this year, his exhibition sculpture will feature a polar bear, a narwhal and a hunter with a feather in his cap to honour Ryan.
“Ryan always had a feather on his hat, so it’s a nod to him in our carving,” Dainty said.
Ryan Hill was a member of the Canadian Ice Carvers Society of Canada. (Submitted by Chris Dainty)
The ice-carving exhibition will be at Confederation Park in Ottawa this weekend. Twelve teams of two carvers will each get 18 blocks of ice to create works inspired by the theme “Celebrating Our Northern Canadian Identity.”
The Ryan Hill Ice-Carving Public Challenge is Feb. 7 at Confederation Park. Each team of two receives a block of ice and is guided by professional carvers to complete a friendly challenge inspired by the theme “Celebrating our Canadian winter identity.” Dainty encouraged people who’d like to learn to ice sculpt to come out and try.
