By Michael Joel-Hansen

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The Prince Albert Winter Festival is underway. The event officially got this weekend and will be continuing with a variety of events.

Part of the festivities includes building three snow sculptures near the Gateway Mall, the Alfred Jenkins Fieldhouse and near the Prince Albert tourism office.

The pieces are the work of Pinehouse-based artist Gary Dean Natomagan. Early Monday morning the artist was hard at work on his dog sculpture near the Gateway Mall. Natomagan told paNOW it can take him quite a bit of time to finish one of his works.

“Probably four hours at the most. Depends on the detail,” he said. The next sculpture he plans to work on will be of a rider, three dogs and a sled.

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While Natomagan crafted the art on his own, two of his cousins joined at the mall and helped pass him tools or shovel the leftover snow.

Natomagan has been creating works from blocks of snow for 15 years. He got his start at the winter festival’s snow sculpting competition.

“I won seven times in a row,” he said.

When he is preparing to do up one of his pieces, Natomagan will sketch out a plan, but sometimes doesn’t follow what he wrote down.

“It’s just up here,” he said, pointing to his head.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn