When life gives you snow, make a 4.5-metre snowman.
That’s what one Halifax trio decided to do with the amount of snow left behind from back-to-back storms last week.
“We have a YouTube channel and every weekend we try to do something cool and different that we may not normally do,” says Stephen Flynn of the videos he creates with his fiancée, Cobie MacFallon.
“This weekend we collaborated with my friend Mike [Postma] here and with all the snow we’ve got, he had the idea that, ‘You guys could shoot a video over at my place and let’s make a huge snowman!’ So for me, we were like, that sounds awesome!”
Flynn, Fallon and Postma set to work building Chubby – a 4.5-metre snowman with hockey puck eyes and buttons, a nose made out of a traffic cone, and arms made out of 1.8-metre branches. Chubby keeps warm with a large piece of plaid fabric purchased from Fabricville and sewn into a custom-made scarf.
“We started at about 9:30 a.m. and finished I think around 4:30, so it was a ton of work and we’re super sore today but well worth it,” says Flynn. “A lot of people coming by to see it and kids love it.”
Building a giant snowman is no easy feat, but the trio quickly devised a plan to bring Chubby to life.
“We came up with this method called the tarp method and basically as the pile got bigger, me and my fiancé would stand up on top of it with a tarp, and Mike would be blasting the snowblower at us and we would block it with the tarp to be able to build the pile up more,” explains Flynn.
“Eventually we had to put wood planks in around the side and build the sides out and then stand on top again with the tarp and take snow in the face … it was pretty funny, but that was our method.”
The process of building Chubby will be documented in a video on their YouTube channel, This Weekend, later this week.
Meanwhile, residents of Connolly Street have been stopping by to pay Chubby a visit. Flynn says seeing the looks on their faces makes a long, cold day in the snow worth it.
“Seeing the reactions and smiles on people’s faces just looking at a giant snowman, it’s awesome!”