MARATHON — An unusual igloo is creating a buzz in Marathon and drawing a lot of attention online to the creative work of local artists Derek Thomson and Candace Deschamps.
The structure in their front yard is made from nearly 300 "ice-balls" they manufactured by freezing balloons filled with water and tinted with food colouring.
It's an impressive sight in the evening when the couple turns on lights inside the igloo.
Thomson, who uses the moniker AbraxaN for his work, said he and his partner got the idea from a social media post.
"We saw a similar project. We'd come across somebody that had used food colouring to dye their balloons. We've never seen anything like that in our small community, so it was just something we decided to go for. You know, the temperatures were cold enough."
It took five days to complete the project.
"We figured if we filled those balloons and threw them out on the lawn, we were at least going to get our frozen ice blocks. It being our first igloo, it was pretty much trial and error from there, filling buckets with snow and water to make the slush. We were able to get it to stick together, and realized after the first two or three rows that the thing was going to work."
The response in Marathon and beyond has been phenomenal, Thomson said.
"We posted it on social media. I think just within the first night, we had about 50,000 reach on Facebook, and my phone hasn't stopped ringing with notifications from here, Thunder Bay, Timmins, and right across Canada because we're in a lot of different social media groups."
The colourful igloo seems to be serving as a pick-me-up for many after the recent spell of extreme cold.
"There's just been a lot of love, a lot of positive feedback. I think it's not something that people, especially in our communities, see every day. Not everybody's running out to build an igloo. It was neat for us to do, and I think a lot of people love seeing that as well," he said.
Thomson and Deschamps are noted for various other artistic works in the region, including an extremely large mural they painted on an older building in Thunder Bay's east end in 2022.
