Gone are the days when dads build simple snowmen for their children. It seems as though fathers across the country are in some sort of competition as to who can make more fun for their kids using a little snow and ice.
Last week, we wrote about an Alberta dad who made his kids a castle using 150 blocks of solid ice. This week, there’s Dino Albert, a father of three from New Brunswick who built a giant slide that fills the family’s entire front yard.
The Tracadie-area dad has built slides like this for the past four winters, though he told reporters that they just keep getting bigger.
This year’s massive red-and-blue slide took him and his wife about 60 hours to complete. With just a little help from a snowblower and leaf blower to pile the snow, the two built the entire slide—complete with banked turns—entirely by hand.
The dye that Albert and his wife mix into the snow adds to the fun, though he said it took years for them to perfect the formula to get such vibrant hues.
They mix one blue or red bingo dabber with two litres of hot water before spraying the ice, which takes about two hours. They then let it freeze and repeat two to three more times before flooding the ice with water one last time to ensure the slide down is smooth.
The impressive slide is visible from the road, so it’s no surprise that the whole neighbourhood is in on the fun.
“It started for us—and then friends, and then friends of friends,” Albert told CBC News.
10-year-old Terry-Line Gaudreau told reporters that it was a bit scary the first time she made her way up the icy stairs, but she’s since conquered her fear of the giant slide, and even looks forward to it.
“I like how it’s big, and it’s not small like the others,” she said.
