By Cheyenne Thomas With ….

By Cheyenne Thomas With an open sky above them, snow walls on three sides, and temperatures hovering around 30 degrees, Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday night was not a typical service. Rather than using the church building, Mass was held outside that evening in an “Ice Church” that was constructed in view of Highway 73 as the parish’s way of joining in the festivities of the annual Neillsville Winter Carnival held this past weekend.

With church-goers and clergy alike dressed in winter weather gear to battle the cold, Mass was celebrated while the sun began to set and the temperature began to drop. Roughly 150 people attended the outdoor service, as parishioners and members of the local community came together to worship.

The idea of an ice church came from St. Mary’s pastor Rev. Greg Michaud — an idea which took three years to finally make into reality. He had been inspired a by fellow priest and former classmate who holds a similar “Ice Church” Mass every year in Houghton, Mich.

“One of my classmates from seminary, Father Ben Hasse, is the pastor at St. Albert the Great, which is on the campus of Michigan Tech, MTU,” he explained. “And in 2016, he started building an ice church over there with the students at Michigan Tech for their annual Winter Carnival. I knew about it since we talked about it during hunting camp. Then I thought, ‘Well, we have a winter carnival. Why don’t we do it?’” While sounding rather simple on the surface, one thing did come to stand in the way of making an ice church a reality for the Neillsville parish: weather. Unlike northern Michigan, where there is more snow at this time of year, Michaud said the biggest struggle in getting an ice church built was the lack of snow and warmer temperatures the past few years. But after three years of prayer and waiting, enough snow was provided this year to allow the church to be constructed.

The process to build the church was one that was completed over the course of a few weeks, with help from many different volunteers. As the first step in the process, Michaud said Dirt Bros Excavating LLC, which does plowing for the church, hauled in additional snow free of charge to give them material to build with. After the snow was hauled in, several parishioners came out on weekends to build the church, snowy brick by snowy brick. “Clinton Hannasch came up with the idea to build forms that we filled up with snow,” said Michaud. “After 15 minutes, we pulled the forms off and moved on to the next part of the wall. There was no water used. It’s the same principle as the quinzhee hut used in winter survival tactics. It uses a process called sintering, where particles of snow cohere to one another and the cold solidifies it over time.” Using this technique, the parishioners were able to build the entire structure in about 15 hours. Members of the parish who helped with the construction of the ice church included Bill Poechel, Cody Kallian, Clinton and Colton Hannasch, Steven Lehn, Scott Swita, Doug Spaete, and Tom Wagner. Once they completed the construction, members of the church’s CCD classes came out the night of Feb. 19 to carve out details, such as niches for candles and doors, as well as build the altar where Mass would be performed. At the front of the sanctuary, a few extra details were also added, including two “stained glass” windows made out of plexiglass, a wooden cross, and designs on the altar itself. After all the work was put in, Mass was held in the ice church Feb. 22. For the elderly and those with young children, the ice church had been constructed in such a way to allow them to view the service from inside the church narthex, where it was warm for the entire hour of Mass. Everyone else dressed warmly and braved the outdoors, some bringing chairs to sit on, while others stood throughout the service. After Mass, everyone who attended was invited to warm up with a bonfire that had been started, with hot chocolate provided as well.

The event, Michaud said, is one he hopes will become an annual one for St. Mary’s, as well as an event the entire community can look forward to. As a part of the wider Neillsville community, he said it was important for the parish to take part in and celebrate the local festivities in their own way, providing a connecting point between the secular and religious world by literally opening the church up in a way for all to see.

“My desire is to have the parish involved in more of the civic events around town,” he said. “We are a spiritual center, but we’re not just that. We’re a part of this community. We don’t want to stand apart. We want people to know that and to know that we are always open to everybody, not just at this Ice Mass, but always.”

Now that the Mass is over, Michaud said the ice church will remain standing as long as God wills it, the weather determining when the snowy creation finally melts. As long as the church remains standing, he said the parish hopes to hold a small fundraising contest which people can enter and guess on what day the walls of the ice church are gone. Whoever guesses correctly will split the winnings with the parish, with the rest of the money going to a cause yet to be determined.

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTOS