Yellowknife (Feb 28/03) - I grew up in Victoria where it snows every few years. A few flakes fall and the shocked and shackled city shuts down -- schools close, the roads are chaos and numerous floral fatalities are noted in blooming gardens along the boulevards of the city.

It's no wonder that I had to pay my dues to write about the king.

Anthony Foliot, better known as the Snowking, wouldn't grant me an interview until I spent a day in his quarry.

So after a back-breaking day of hauling snow blocks, chiselling ice and shovelling snow in the bitter elements for his Royal Coldness, I can count myself a loyal subject to the Great Slave snow monarchy.

The king predicts this year's castle, the eighth kingdom in the series, could be the most architecturally ambitious yet.

"Number eight will be the more like a castle than any have been before," he said. "Before they were really just free-form funky designs. This is definitely a castle."

The kingdom won't necessarily be bigger, explained Foliot, but the attention to fine details will be impressive.

The ice windows are clearer, there are real turrets at the corners, the carvings are more precise and the floor plan is more complex. The king is most proud of the walls this year, which are all made of meticulously placed blocks carved from his snow quarries.

"With castle's before I got lazy with some of my walls," he said. "This year I've spent an awful lot of time making sure the blocks are nice and square and the seams aren't gappy."

Snow castle standards are up for a number of reasons, said Foliot. The weather has been cold, making the blocks solid and new snowfall has been minimal, giving him less "yard work" around the walls of his cold keep. He also gives credit to his business manager, Travis Armour, a friend of Foliot's who has ensured that the logistics of the Snowking festival are looked after.

"He definitely deserves a nod," said Foliot. "It's the first year I've had a manager. He goes around pumping hands and getting things done -- like advertising -- -which gives me more time to spend out in the snow."

Castle construction hit a bizarre setback in early February when a fault in the ice cracked in the middle of the night and six inches of lake water filled the castle's interior, lowering the wall, covering the floor in an unsightly ice bank and freezing the bottom layer of one of the snow quarries. Foliot laughed it off.

"We're doing a lot better this year than we have done in the past," he said. "Even the dogs are better behaved. There's been far less peeing this year."

Foliot has also drawn a record number of royal subjects to carry out the king's bidding, which he keeps track of by tallying the volunteer hours. He will have received over 200 hours of volunteer labour by Friday -- though hopefully many of those hours were better spent than my five. I was exhausted and freezing in my pair of royal coveralls -- on loan from the King -- when my untrained hand and eye cut one too many crooked blocks with the snow saw. I was demoted to chiselling ice off the floor in the castle with other members of the North Slave peasantry.

"You Vancouver-Victoria people just don't have an appreciation for the finer points of winter," he said, throwing his arms up in the air and handing me the ice chisel. "What am I going to do with you?"

Foliot said the Snowking works so well because of the philosophy behind the festival.

"It's not about piling everything onto two days," he said. "We have a better product for the citizens and tourists alike.

"With Snowking we're out here all winter. People come by, they're out walking their dogs, or just outdoors enjoying the winter, and they stop in."

"Yellowknife is a winter city and it should be focused on more events that are about winter celebration."

Foliot said he hopes the activity around the castle will continue to grow with the amount of blocks he's able to lay and rooms he's able to create.

"We're approaching the maturity of a true festival this year," he said. "I think that one day we'll be able to rival any city that puts up a snow castle."

Foliot admits he'll be "pushed to complete" the castle by Friday's opening ceremony, but he reminds people that he will continue adding to the castle for the rest of the cold season.

"This is my art, this is how I express myself," he said.