SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The glint of hundreds of frozen ornaments strung up on snow-covered branches were enough to stop Iman Kassam in her tracks as she snowmobiled back to her home from Rotary Park last weekend.

Ice decorations on a trail by the lake near Old Town are the work of Amanda Mallon, who said she decided to hang them as a winter celebration. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo

The Old Town resident usually rides home along School Draw Avenue, but was pleasantly surprised when she happened to discover "this magical fairy icicle land of wonders," while taking an unexpected detour along a small trail that runs parallel to the road beginning at Rotary Park and running through to the Woodyard.

"I wasn't looking around. I was just looking where I needed to be going, then of the corner of my eye I saw these cool icicle tree ornaments," she said.

At first glance, a tired Kassam wondered if the ice had formed on the trees naturally. But when she saw the strings attached to them, she realized that someone had made an effort to spruce up the trail.

"It really brightened up my day," she said. "The winters can get really long and dark so it's really nice to see people still have fun."

While the invisible hand responsible for the colourful doughnut-shaped rings was a mystery at first, a little amateur Facebook sleuthing revealed they were the brainchild of longtime Old Town resident Amanda Mallon.

"It's partly a reaction to our very smoky summer," explained Mallon, describing the motivation behind her decorations.

"We had such a smoky summer that we didn't get the chance to enjoy it so I said I was going to do everything I could to enjoy (winter)."

Mallon said she came up with the idea for making the translucent ornaments after finding a six-cup muffin tray at the dump one day. After coming across another dozen-cup tray, Mallon decided to start filling them with a bright array of cranberries, green beans, carrots and blueberries before topping them off with water and throwing them in the freezer. After making her first batch last November, Mallon took to the trail between Rotary Park and Lundquist Road, where she looped them on overhanging branches along the way. Mallon, who walks the trail several times a day, said she made a habit of bringing at least a half-dozen of her frozen creations on every trip, sometimes putting up as many as 30 at a time. So far, she reckons she has strung up more than 500 of the rainbow-coloured ornaments along the trail.

"I wanted to embrace winter this year," she said. "It's my winter gardening."

Most of the decorations are still there, having managed to withstand the glare of the sun and the temptation of vandals. Mallon said she originally had plans to stop after Christmas, but she thought it would be a shame to stop when she noticed the daylight hours started growing longer again.

"I think I'll stop in April," she said. "As the light returns, I don't want to stop."

When the rings finally do melt, their contents will thaw, becoming either food for birds or mulch to nourish the branches that held them up to the light through the winter. Once her ornaments have melted from whence they came, Mallon said she plans to go out and cut off all the string that the decorations are hanging from so that there will be no trace of them once summer comes. That's what Mallon loves about her decorations - "they're seasonal, they're impermanent," like the smiles they bring to those who stumble upon them.

- with files from Evan Kiyoshi French

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