Dad creates Hogwarts wonderland outside Sherwood Park home

Ice carver Kelly Davies was giddy with excitement when the heavy snowfall started on Jan. 19.

"When I woke up that morning, I started to vibrate," he said.

He went straight to work shovelling the snow into large wooden boxes to create blocks for carving.

Since then, he has transformed his Sherwood Park front yard into a "little slice of Hogwarts" for his daughters, Anna, 8, and Julia, 6.

Anna got the boxed set of Harry Potter books last summer and read them all in under three weeks, said Davies.

"We got the movies, and then the little one started watching the movies with her."

Both daughters are "head over heels for Hogwarts and all things Harry Potter," said Davies.

So he decided his front yard creation this winter would have a theme. Last winter, he built an ice slide and ringed it with various sea creatures, including a seahorse and turtles.

• Front yard ice slide lights up Sherwood Park street

This year, Davies built a section of the Great Hall dining room in Hogwarts castle, carving the snow blocks with a chainsaw. He added a replica of the chair professor Albus Dumbledore would sit in at the front of the hall.

He continues to work on large snow pillars, carving them to look like torches found in the halls of Hogwarts, with owls on them.

Lights have been added under the snow, to bring life to his creation at night.