It’s been seven days and Michigan Tech’s hard work still stands tall. In 2024 many of the All-nighter and month-long winter carnival snow statues lost a lot of the details that students worked hard to create due to an unseasonable stretch of warm days. This year’s statues might have a few more inches of snow on top now. But the marvelous statues are a welcome sight to many in the community.
Yeah, it’s very impactful to the community. It brings visitors and alumni back to the area during a time of year that traditionally would be a little slow for us. So it’s very important. We get thousands of people coming into our communities. They come for the snow sculptures. They come back to see their old stomping grounds from when they were in college. But then, of course, they pay for local businesses. They shop at our local retail shops. They go to the KBC, brewery, that kind of stuff. So that money comes back into our community. So it’s an exciting time when our carnival comes around. – Brad Barnett, Executive Director, Visit Keweenaw
Winter carnival’s economic impact is seen in full hotels, says visit Keweenaw executive director Brad Barnett, packed restaurants and bars, and brings huskies home to relive the glory days. He adds that since the COVID-19 pandemic tracking economic data around recreation has become more important to groups like Visit Keweenaw.
It’s always been a hotel room filler. Right for us in our region, which has been important. And when you layer that on top of the other types of winter recreation that we have, like snowmobiling, skiing, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, all that kind of fun stuff, it just makes for a very vibrant winter economy here. So it’s been really important. We saw a 20% increase year over year compared to last year, right? So just from our local hotel data. So we know that when winter carnival shines, right? We have the right conditions, it brings people in here and it makes a very dramatic impact on our area. – Brad Barnett, Executive Director, Visit Keweenaw
Alumni return to see how snow sculptures and the construction of the statues. Barnett says most stay a few days.
What we see is an uptick really that Thursday night, right? So that is the first day of snow sculpture unveiling, right? Winter, like the all-nighter on Wednesday nights, is heavily attended locally. Then we start to see people come into town Thursday and stay through Saturday night. And so it’s usually a two or three-day experience. And then, you know, people got to get back home and get back to work and all that good fun stuff. – Brad Barnett, Executive Director, Visit Keweenaw
Winter Carnival adds to a vibrant winter recreation and tourism economy in the Keweenaw peninsula. Barnett says the region has relied upon layering the impact of the event with visitors snowmobiling and cross-country skiing, with other large events such as Heikinpaiva, CopperDog, and Jibba Jabba.
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