Anchorage gets a hulking, ‘spunky’ new winter celebrity

Was it a fort? A new kind of igloo? Snowzilla, making a return?

For more than a week, Anchorage residents have been speculating online about a 20-foot creation in an industrial area of Ship Creek. This week, the answer became clearer when the hulking object acquired lashed eyes, two sticks for arms, pink foam mittens, and a matching hat — introducing her as Snow Ella. Her foam tongue hangs out of a smiling mouth in a perpetual, playful taunt.

Reviews online have been mixed — one commenter on Reddit dubbed her simultaneously “hideous” and “perfect.”

But for many flocking to see Snow Ella in person, and the builders who labored over her for several weeks, she’s only perfect.

“Isn’t she cute?” said creator Cyrus Aldeman — a rhetorical question — as he smiled up at Snow Ella’s tiered wedding-cake-shaped body. “So adorable. She’s quirky and spunky and fun,” Aldeman said.

What began as an idea for a tourist attraction has instead become a draw for locals.

On Friday, the ground surrounding Snow Ella was strewn with rainbow confetti, likely brought by one of the many visitors who have come to visit since she was completed earlier this week, Aldeman said. As he spoke, a handful of local people showed up to photograph Snow Ella: a mother and her sons, grandparents and their two granddaughters, and a few single spectators who snapped photos on their phones and quickly left.

Aldeman, who runs Anchorage Trolley Tours, said he wanted to build the gigantic snowwoman to add to his company’s winter city tour circuit that takes visitors to attractions around town.

He gleaned inspiration from Snowzilla, Anchorage’s original iconic giant snowman. Off and on for years, a cohort of East Anchorage families have constructed the 30-foot snowman on Billy Powers’ Airport Heights front lawn. During an Anchorage Trolley Tours company visit to Snowzilla last winter, a staff member’s 3-year-old daughter, Lalani Campbell, asked why there wasn’t a giant snow lady.

“I was like, ‘Do you want to build a snow lady?’ ” Aldeman said.

Beginning in November, he and his team got to work assembling materials. They started building Ella on a 2-acre plot of land the company leases from the Alaska Railroad. Anchorage’s warm winter made the job challenging, Aldeman said. The team used excavators to collect snow to make Ella. But when rising temperatures melted her, they relied on donated snow — about 12 tons, in total — from their neighbors, Aldeman said.

The team of five builders used a lone telephone pole as Ella’s center base. Then, they used about 80 pallets, wrapped with heavy duty straps, to secure the snow while they packed it down. The workers removed the pallets, layer by layer, after freezing Ella in place with water overnight, perfecting her shape as they went.

When Aldeman finally packed enough snow to cover the telephone pole — and Ella’s 20-foot height — he said that’s when she started melting, and he had to go back and add more snow.

“It was a labor of love, let’s put it that way,” he said.

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Aldeman also wrote a children’s book to go along with Snow Ella, which he said he’s putting the finishing touches on this week.

“The whole premise of the book is (Snow Ella asking), ‘Have you seen my friend Snowzilla?’” he said.

Her journey takes her on Anchorage’s Moose Loop trail, where she seeks directions from different characters, including Benny the Bear and Eddie the Eagle, to help her find Snowzilla.

“I wanted (them) to be friends, not competition,” Aldeman said. “At the end of the day, our goal as a tourism community is to bring people here, show off our love of Alaska, and invite their friends to come up.”

He said he’s happy locals are appreciating her, too.

“She’s gorgeous,” said one spectator, Ruth Dodson. She came to take photos of Snow Ella with her granddaughters, who each wore clothing that matched Ella’s pink detailing. “She’s not only ready for Christmas, but Valentine’s Day, too.”

As for one of Snowzilla’s creators, Billy Ray Powers said in a phone interview that he had been sent photos of Snow Ella, and plans to go out and visit her himself.

“She’s pretty,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, any snow person is a good thing.”

Powers also said that his family and fellow Snowzilla builders are standing by for fresh powder to resurrect Ella’s friend this year.

“If we get 3 inches of snow — nice, clean snow — everybody will go crazy,” Powers said.