BISMARCK (KXNET) — Even cold temperatures couldn't stop the community from enjoying Vinterfest 2025. Many families gathered at the North Dakota Heritage Center for snow carving, crafts, and a chance to marvel at large-scale snow sculptures. Created by Team North Dakota Snow Sculpting, the eight-by-eight-by-10-foot sculpture showcases traditional Scandinavian rose patterns in a swirl of flowers, animals, and chaotic beauty. “It’s called the Scandinavian Snow Globe,” said sculptor Josh Zeis. “It’s some traditional Scandinavian rose modeling patterning that we just created in this kind of a ball of chaos. If you look back there, you’ll see, like, there’s some flowers and some animals, but there’s a little bit of rhyme to the reason.” The team began work on Thursday, battling warm weather that made sculpting difficult. “We started on Thursday, and it was very warm,” Zeis said. “All we could do was just get the rough shape, so it was just a ball. It looked like a golf ball. We couldn’t do any detail work because it was kind of like mashed potatoes. That was as far as we could go.” Securing snow for the sculpture was another challenge, according to team member Mike Nelson. “We knew a couple weeks ago that we weren’t going to be getting a lot of snow,” Nelson said. “So we got the snow removal company to have a separate pile that they were trying to keep as clean as possible for us. The snow is a couple weeks old, which isn’t great for sculpture, but it’s the best we can get, and then it ended up working out fine for us in this case.” Visitors to the event didn’t just watch; they joined in the fun. Families had the chance to try sculpting alongside the professionals. “I want people to see something big, something epic, something that gets their imagination going,” Nelson said. “It’s just any excuse to get people out of their houses when it’s this cold is what we’re looking for.” For those who preferred to stay warm, indoor activities like making greenery crowns offered a cozy alternative. “Greenery crowns are inspired by the Swedish tradition of the greenery crowns,” said Lacey Heid of the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation. While the snow sculptures are temporary, visitors still have time to admire them before they begin to melt. “Once they start melting, I think it happens pretty fast,” Heid said. Zeis added, “If it stays cold, the details will slowly diminish. I think it’ll be pretty nice for three weeks to a month.”