Yellowknife (Oct 08/04) - A multimedia installation that first appeared at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre will soon be on display in Scotland.

Judith McNicol's "s'no'fair" exhibit will open at The Arches, a prestigious gallery in downtown Glasgow, in November.

Judith McNicol NNSL file photo

She's excited to be taking the show abroad and is curious as to how Glaswegians in the throes of a dark and rainy Scottish winter will respond to her sparkling, creatively lit celebration of snow.

"There they love snow," she said. "They think it's really special."

Yellowknifers enjoyed "s'no'fair" when it was at the museum during the summer of 2002. McNicol said the choice of a summer exhibit here was deliberate -- to keep visitors from suffering snow fatigue.

The exhibit took a powerful and playful look at the white stuff, with intense close-up photos of snow; slides of snowscapes in light boxes suspended from the ceiling; poetry about snow in many languages including Inuktitut, Welsh, French and German; tape recorded sounds of snow, like trucks driving the ice roads; and films of people playing in snow.

"The reception it had here was really encouraging," she said.

Stories inspire artist

McNicol, who is originally from Glasgow, moved to Yellowknife 15 years ago. Her great aunt lived in a shack at Con Mine in 1954 and designed the city's coat of arms. It was her stories about Canada's North that ignited McNicol's imagination as a young girl.

McNicol expects her exhibit will attract a lot of interest in Glasgow, and is looking forward to being a kind of ambassador for the NWT.

"People are fascinated by the Arctic," said McNicol. "But they don't know much about it. And people there think about snow very romantically."

When the exhibit's run ends in Glasgow, she hopes to take the show on tour in the north of Scotland.

She's working on three new exhibits, only one of which is related to winter.