Giant snow dragon makes winter return to Saskatoon

Those meandering through Saskatoon’s Churchill neighbourhood might just come face to snout with a gigantic blue beast.

“Deano” is Mel Thompson’s creation of the winter — a big, blue snow dragon she named in honour of her late stepfather, who passed away just a few days before Christmas.

Mel Thompson with her creation, Deano the great big blue snow dragon, on Jan. 23, 2023. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)

“His favourite colour was blue, he loved the dragons and he was someone known for making people smile,” Thompson said. “So I figured it was only appropriate that the dragon be named after him.

“We really need more things to smile about these days.”

Thompson has sculpted six dragons and a couple of igloos in the past five years since she first had the idea to make something out of the snow in her yard.

“I was kind of just sitting here, bored, looking out my window and I was like, ‘My snow bank is kind of shaped like a dragon,'” Thompson shared.

With no more knowledge than making snowmen as a kid, Thompson turned that snow bank into her first dragon and has been honing the skills with projects each year ever since.

There was a learning curve over the first few years, she said. Part of that included how to colour her creation.

Thompson said she started out trying to pour paint out of a watering can, which didn’t bode well for her lawn after the snow melted away. Eventually, thanks to support from her work, Thompson found success using a chemical sprayer loaded with food colouring.

Deano took Thompson about two weeks — 50 to 60 dedicated hours of work — to complete, though she got help from a friend who loaned her a Bobcat.

“That helped a lot,” Thompson said.

Mel Thompson alongside Deano the snow dragon, created in honour of her late stepfather. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)

A Halloween fog machine and a few lights inside the snowy beast illuminate its eyes and nose at night and allow it to “breathe smoke.”

The whole project cost her about $8 this year, since she had most of the equipment from previous years and bought food colouring in bulk. Thompson said her work, Flaman Sales and Rentals, is also very generous with supporting her wintry proclivities.

With the past weekend’s weather hovering right around the +1 C mark, Thompson said it was the perfect time to complete her latest snow reptile.

“Any warmer and I would have had trouble with melting,” she said. “The snow was just wet enough to get it to shape and it was tolerable to be outside.”

The hardest part of the approximately 40-foot sculpture is getting the ears to stay in place. Thompson revealed that she basically had to turn them to ice for them to conquer gravity.

As long as temperatures are about -10 C and no warmer than the low positives, Thompson said her sculpting is a viable endeavour.

It’s nice, she said, to be doing things to bring other’s joy. Kids going to the school down her street will stop by to see what she has made in her lawn and she’ll regularly see people slow their cars down in front of her house, craning their necks to get a good view of the humongous dragon.

“Just the look on people’s faces when they see it is like, ‘Wow. It’s huge,'” Thompson said.