The day of reckoning has been coming for years. In January 2016, the bare brown ground made it painfully clear that there would be no giant snow sculpture on the Green for Winter Carnival. Students built the world’s tallest snowman right there in 1987, but that was a snowier era.
In February 2024, the mild winter made it impossible for ice to form on Occom Pond, where students typically cut a hole and dive in. The Winter Carnival Committee had to cancel the annual polar bear swim—for the third time in five years.
Most recently, New Hampshire’s worst drought in more than a century forced the College to cancel the annual bonfire on Homecoming Weekend in October. First-year students who once would have raced around the fire—or even tried to touch it—instead danced around the laser show that replaced the flames at the last minute.
The increasingly unstable climate is wreaking havoc on some of Dartmouth’s most cherished traditions, leaving College officials bracing for what’s next. Long-term weather forecasters see a chance of a colder and wetter winter in the Northeast—good news for winter activities—but the overall trend since the 1950s has been toward less snow and more unpredictability.
“It’s something that I’ve been trying to ring a little bit of an alarm bell about for a while,” says David Pack, the College’s director of student involvement. “We need to be looking at ways to evolve these traditions. And Winter Carnival is one that has always evolved.” Pack was one of the heroes at Homecoming when a summerlong drought led to a statewide ban on outdoor fires—including the 60-foot-high bonfire that is the centerpiece of the pregame Homecoming rally.
Pack suggested that Dartmouth instead hire GrooveBoston/Mission Six to put on a light show on the Green. First-year students had light-up wristbands synchronized to the music so that they became part of the show. Though some grumbled about the lack of fire, students seemed to enjoy the dance party, and Dartmouth beat Yale in football the next day.
But how did Pack know to suggest a laser show at all? Because he was already working with GBM6 to stage an elaborate light show during Winter Carnival 2026 so planners would not be so dependent on winter weather for success. Pack called the company about a Homecoming show, and “we managed to turn this all around in under two weeks.”
Make no mistake: The weather really has changed in northern New England. Back in the 1950s, when Dartmouth students built massive, iconic sculptures such as the 45-foot-tall god of skiing, Ullr, Hanover typically got more than 80 inches of snow each year. Since 2010, the town has typically received less than 50 inches.
But the dwindling snow—and warmer winter temperatures—went hand in hand with dwindling student enthusiasm, at least for building massive sculptures. The towering figures can take weeks to create, weeks that today’s students simply don’t have. As a result, no one built a mammoth sculpture on the Green last year, and Pack doesn’t expect one this year. Instead, less time-consuming sculptures carved from blocks of ice have proliferated, and Pack sees no reason that mild weather would sideline them.
Meanwhile, GBM6 has committed to do a light-and-sound show during Winter Carnival on at least two of the four nights, February 6-9, and more if the Student Programming Board can get the funding. The immersive show will be in the area around the Observatory, Bartlett Tower, and the Robert Frost statue and will be reminiscent of the light shows the College started mounting during the pandemic, unrelated to Winter Carnival.
“This may be the solution of a climate-resilient focal point for Winter Carnival, something that can adapt,” says Pack.
It won’t be like the good old days, Pack admits, but he points out that Winter Carnival has always evolved. Dartmouth used to stage a beauty contest at Winter Carnival called “Queen of the Snows,” but it was phased out when the College began admitting women in 1972. Today’s students scarcely even know it existed.
But Dartmouth really does love its traditions. The day after the Homecoming laser show, Thayer Engineering School’s interim dean, Douglas Van Citters ’99, Th’03, Th’06, planted a model of the bonfire near the main entrance to Thayer. A handbill in front of the neatly stacked blocks read simply, “The bonfire WILL return—DVC.”
