The following blog post, written by Naval Air Facility Misawa Public Affairs Officer Senior Chief Daniel Sanford, takes you on a journey to the 63rd annual Sapporo Snow Festival. This festival is more than just snow sculpting; it’s about building camaraderie and following through on a commitment to reach a common goal… which happen to be characteristics we use in the Navy. Come along as Daniel takes us along this “cool” ride by the “Can Do” team in part ONE of TWO on the event coverage.

Day 1: The “Sapporo Six.” That’s the tremendously-unoriginal moniker I’ve given this year’s Navy Misawa Snow Sculpting Team. Comprised of six handpicked Sailors from various commands on board Naval Air Facility Misawa, they all currently reside on the northern end of Japan’s Honshu Island, in the heart of Misawa City. NAF Misawa is also home to 14 tenant or deployed commands encompassing about 800 Sailors. From this multitude of outstanding Sailors, only six were chosen, thus begetting, well … see the first sentence.

“Sapporo Six” (minus Billy!)

Led by Chief Builder Billy Knox, a Navy Seabee originally from Chapin, Ill., the team is comprised of six Sailors from six unique Misawa Navy Commands: BUC Christopher “Billy” Knox, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Far East Detachment Misawa Misawa; IS3 Class Zachary James, Naval Air Facility Misawa; ET2 Class James Johnston, Commander Task Force 72; CTCSN Herschel Moore,Navy Information Operations Command Misawa; ATAN Trevor Teschel, Patrol Squadron 1; ADAN Alvin Zuilan, Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Detachment Misawa

Having never been formally introduced to each other until today, and with virtually no discernible snow sculpting skills, the team is about to depart on a full-day’s journey from Misawa to Sapporo, located on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. It is there they will take part in the 63^rd Annual Sapporo Snow Festival.

Every year NAF Misawa and its tenant commands send a team of Sailors to the festival to represent the base and the strong relationship it shares with the community.

While there, the team is also tasked with taking part in the festival’s snow sculpture event, in which they attempt to build a sculpture from a six-foot-by-six-foot cube of compacted snow.

Of this year’s team, only Knox has previous experience with snow sculpting, as he led up the team that built last year’s sculptures.

I say sculptures because in 2011, his team built a pretty cool looking “snow anchor,” which unfortunately succumbed to unseasonably warm weather and collapsed just two days before the festival was due to open. But in keeping with this Seabee’s “can-do” spirit, Knox rallied his team forward, and within 18 hours, built the “Phoenix Anchor,” a completely new anchor that proudly jutted toward the Sapporo skyline and remained on display for the more than 200,000 festivalgoers.

Billy Knox

So when asked whether Knox was gun shy about building another creation out of nothing more than snow and the grease of Sailor elbows, he quickly replied in his bastardized Illinois twang, “Hell Nah.”

And true to his word, this year’s creation is not for the meek sculptor. The team has signed on to build a bust of the famous “Lone Sailor” statue. Yes, it’s a head-and-shoulders replica of the monument that currently resides at the U.S. Navy Memorial inWashington D.C. And while the anchor sculpture had a more basic-angular feel, creating detailed facial features from a block of snow certainly represents a whole new set of challenges for the team – the least of which is a deadline of Sunday, Feb. 5.

Whether or not the Sapporo Six are successful depends largely on their teamwork, attitude, commitment, skill and the weather. Thankfully (and I use this word loosely), temperatures will dip into the single digits this week, which should help alleviate the concern of another warm-weather collapse.

But, as Knox said to his team upon meeting them, “Failure is not an option.”

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DAY 2: Following a day of travel that featured eight hours on the road in the “snowflake 3000,” interspersed with a four-hour ferry ride from Honshu Island to Hokkaido Island, the “Sapporo Six” were finally in Sapporo.

Their first stop was to the Camp Sapporo “So You Kai” office and a meeting and gift exchange with Camp Sapporo Command Sgt. Maj. Hiroaki Sanpai.

Sanpai and Snow Sculpting Team Leader Chief Builder Christopher “Billy” Knox have grown a close relationship stemming from last year’s visit. When Knox’s first snow anchor sculpture collapsed due to unseasonably warm weather, it was Sanpai who offered assistance with rebuilding it, and personally came out to the site to help Knox and his team rebuild the “Phoenix Anchor.”

After exchanging gift plaques in honor of the close friendship between NAF Misawa and Camp Sapporo, Sanpai took the team out to the site where they’ll be constructing their “Lone Sailor” snow sculpture for the Sapporo Snow Festival.

Since construction of the sculpture wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow, the team had to settle for just looking at the six-foot-by-six-foot block of compacted snow. All agreed they couldn’t wait until tomorrow to start chopping it up.

The team was next escorted to Sapporo City Hall where they met with the city’s tourism manager. The team was served hot tea and each received a “happy coat” as a gift from the city.

The last meeting was with Camp Sapporo’s Garrison Commander and the team once again enjoyed hot tea and a few minutes with the base leadership.

The final event of the day was a get-together dinner hosted by the Camp Sapporo “So You Kai,” which featured dinner and drinks in a very social environment. Each attendee had the opportunity to stand up and formally introduce themself to the crowd. Even though communication may have been difficult with the language barrier, it’s funny how the communication process is easier after a few beers together.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow brings about the first day of sculpting and the “Sapporo Six” are ready to turn a snow cube into a Navy dude.

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DAY 3: So with the pleasantries of yesterday complete, the stark challenge facing the “Sapporo Six”

How do you use this…

to make this iconic image…

Team Lead, “Billy” Knox, who normally builds things out of concrete, utilized his training as a U.S. Navy Seabee and decided to create a giant snow graph.

The original design that Knox intends to use is on graph paper, so the best way to move forward is to make the creation to scale. So as the temperatures stubbornly remained in the teens, his team began the tedious task of inserting horizontal and vertical lines approximately eight-inches apart. I say approximately, because while the block of compressed snow is supposed to be six-foot-by-six-foot, apparently its creation is not an exact science. So in the words of Knox:

ET2 James Johnston and ATAN Trevor Teschel

“Guess we better improvise.”

Hours later after the graph lines are applied with chalk and the design is roughly inserted into the snow using markers, the team begins chipping, chiseling, and in many instances, pounding away at the enormous snow cube.

ET2 Class James Johnston

Within an hour, a Navy “dixie cup” of sorts began to take form – or a banana – depending on from what angle you were looking at.

Additionally, Naval Air Facility Misawa Command Master Chief Mike Napier, who took leave to be in Sapporo with the team, stopped by to lend a hand (and a chisel). Napier has been a big supporter of the team the past two years and even paid for the team’s snowcaps out of pocket. Although he retires from the Navy next month after 30 years of service, he had the energy of a screamin’ seaman as he climbed all over the sculpture to help remove the excess snow.

But as the hours passed, the frigid temperatures made the sculpting that much more problematic.

“I have on three pairs of socks and I still can’t feel my toes,” said IT3 Zachary James. Although he’s a Seattle native, the Pacific Northwest has nothing on a northern Japan winter.

In fact, very few of these Sailors even come from cold-weather areas. Heck, ET2 James Johnston was born in Hawaii. So the difficulty of the design, along with the long hours spent outside in the frozen Sapporo tundra, will make the next few days very challenging for the team.

By the time the sun began to set, the team had spent about eight hours on the project and the sculpture looked like this:

So while the “the Lone Sailor” looks more like a dangerous loner right now, know that the team will be out here again bright and early again tomorrow morning. First order of business: making that nose a littttle less bulbous. Hooyah, Snow Team!

CHECK BACK Wednesday for the next report on the Sapporo 6!