Calgary family’s ‘ice dome’ captivates online audiences worldwide
James Windler, Staff Writer |
Every year it seems as though Calgary breaks a weather-related record.
Not even two weeks into the year, Calgarians almost saw weather that hadn’t been around in quite a while with Jan. 12 having the lowest projected daytime high in over half a century.
The official daytime high for Jan. 12 was -30.4 C, but the weather was still cold enough to warrant an extreme cold warning.
The yearly cold snaps Calgary experiences have most people bundled up indoors, but Kacey Clark and her family saw it as an opportunity to create something fun and unique.
“We have wanted to make some sort of structure outside in the winter for a while so when we heard the polar vortex was rolling in, we knew that freezing bricks to build something would be easier and faster,” said Clark.
Clark and her husband, Josh, got right to work on the ice dome (commonly mistaken for an igloo) by adding different types of colouring to aluminum trays full of water. Once the colourful trays of water froze, they started assembling the ice dome.
As Clark and her family assembled the ice dome, they decided to start documenting the journey of the building process on their Instagram page @adventurekids.ca which boasts over half a million followers.
Almost overnight the video blew up, going viral all over the world.
Josh Clark, husband of Kacey Clark, saw an opportunity to create something fun and unique amidst blizzarding Calgary. Photo of Josh Clarke.
Going viral
With a platform as big as @adventurekids.ca, videos going viral aren’t unheard of. But Clark was shocked with just how many people from all over the world reached out to her after the first few videos.
“The attention was the biggest surprise for sure; we have had media requests from all over the world, it’s so fun and overwhelming,” Clark said.
The first ice dome reel raked in a whopping 27.4 million views on Instagram with 18 more reels gaining over a million views with the final reel in the building process pulling in 72.6 million views.
“We hope that this opportunity helps spread the word of how little projects can create such community and connection, and I hope it encourages families and individuals to get out and build something of their own.”
Bringing people together
The online success of the ice dome videos was a pleasant surprise to Clark and her family, but she mentioned that the best part of this whole experience was how it got her closer to people in her community and her family.
“We have definitely met a lot of our neighbours through the dome-building process, it was the talk of the town in our neighbourhood chat,” said Clark.
“It was so fun to build together; we would talk about it as a family and then get outside together and just enjoy every moment.”
With the cold snap now in the rear-view mirror and the ice dome unfortunately melting, Clark and her family are looking forward to their next project.
“Ice Dome” has captured the hearts of families locally and worldwide.
Clark hopes whatever comes next helps inspire other families who are looking to get into similar family-friendly activities, as this was the main purpose of starting the @adventurekids.ca Instagram account.
“Our whole goal of [@adventureKids] is to support families in their goals to get outside and explore with their kiddos, that’s why we create free printables and fun ideas for kids to get outdoors,” said Clark.
For more information on what Clark and her family are up to next head over to their website adventurekids.ca. There you can find things like their newsletter, free printables, and more.
