The Baisas brothers have done it again.
This time, it’s with their respective spouses, winning the first SnowDays International Snow Sculpture Competition held on January 17-19, 2019 in Banff, Alberta.
Couples Ross and Marites Baisas, and Antonio and Maria Elena Baisas, known as Team Baisas, won the contest for their snow sculpture called ‘Tangle’, according to a media release by the Philippine government’s Department of Foreign Affairs.
‘Tangle’ depicted two moose with inter-locking antlers.
The Baisas couples topped five other international competitors, winning both the Judges’ Pick, and the People’s Choice Awards.
The media release recalled that brothers Ross and Antonio come from a family of wood carvers in Paete, Laguna.
Paete is known as the wood-carving capital of the Philippines.
Antonio came to Canada in 1996, followed by Ross in 2002, according to the media release.
Antonio and Maria Elena now reside in Ottawa. Ross and Marites are based in Montreal.
The SnowDays celebration is a 12-day annual event highlighting the winter season in the Banff National Park of Alberta.
The media release noted that during their stay in Banff for the snow-sculpting competition, Team Baisas was supported by the Filipino community in Banff, led by the Filipino-Canadian (FORM) Community Association in the Rockies, and Dyaryo Filipino, a Calgary-based paper.
Zaldy Patron, deputy consul general at the Philippine consulate in Calgary, phoned the Baisas brothers on January 20, 2019 to congratulate them.
In 2018, Canadian Filipino Net reported that the Baisas brothers won first place in that year’s international ice carving competition at the Boardwalk Ice on Whyte Festival held in Edmonton.
Their work, called Alliance, also won the people’s choice award in the festival that ended in early February.
In an interview with the Ice on Whyte Festival Society, presenter of the festival, the brothers said that the “crystal beauty and the unimaginable possibility” of ice inspired them to become ice carvers.
The Baisas brothers have won international competitions in France, Poland, and the U.S.
The brothers came to Canada to work at casinos in Quebec, carving ice, fruit, vegetables, and other items.
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