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Minnesota Man Builds 12-Foot-Tall Snow Sculpture That Looks Like a Real T-Rex

By Margherita Cole on February 10, 2022

Photo: Paul Larcom

A snow day is a great excuse to go outdoors and build something creative. And while for most that means making snow angels and having a snowball fight, others have loftier ambitions. Minnesota local Paul Larcom has been using the state's frosty winters as the foundation for spectacular sculptures. This year's project was a massive T-rex, which has become a roaring success in the neighborhood and online.

Based in the city of Becker, Larcom has been creating large, detailed snow sculptures for years, but this was the first time he attempted a subject of this scale. At about 12 feet tall and 23 feet long, the dinosaur is an intimidating figure on the maker's yard. It has been positioned so that pedestrians and passing cars from the nearby street are staring at the numerous teeth lining the T-rex's jaw. “[T]his year I wanted to do something big,” Larcom said, “so I thought I'd try a dinosaur this time and thought people might get a kick out of seeing it.”

The colossal statue was a labor of love for the artist, requiring about three weeks of on-and-off work. To make sure the sculpture would be stable, Larcom utilized two large sticks as the frame for the legs, another hefty branch for the body of the dino, and some smaller pieces of wood for the jaw and arms—all of which he encased with layers of snow. After modeling the body of the T-rex with a sculptor's loop tool, he spray-painted the entire figure with brown and yellow colors, creating the distinct pattern of the prehistoric animal. The unexpected use of pigment on the white snow makes the figure all the more shocking and impressive.

See this statue on Sherburne Avenue in Becker, Minnesota before it melts.