Post #351540 by Paipo on Thu, Dec 27, 2007 2:16 PM

On 2007-12-27 11:05, teaKEY wrote:
Wow, those ice drinks are sweet. Tiki mugs, made from pure ice, the farthest material from ancient Polynesian. Looks like blue lights in there? Blue fires that would be hot.

Alps, snow, ice and glaciers are as much a part of New Zealand's history and lifestyle as they are in Europe. Maori had to cross the Southern Alps regularly to take pounamu (jade) from the West to the East Coast. There is a great book about the old pathways. There were personified names for the various forms of snow, hail and ice. Maori were well familiar with building snow caves to survive blizzards, and we also have the world's only alpine parrot:

Slightly more on-topic - I did have the opportunity to carve ice at a sculpture symposium down at the glaciers (about a 3 hour drive from where I live, alps are 1 hour away) a couple of years back, but to my regret I didn't have the tools or the time available to give it a go.