CAMDEN — Winterfest and CamJam kicked off Saturday, Feb. 1, in the Camden Amphitheatre with ice and snow carving, music, sledding, and more. The week-long event culminates with three days of toboggan racing at the Camden Snow Bowl Feb. 7-9.

The Camden Public Library Amphitheatre came alive with community ice carving around noon Saturday. Groups, individuals, schools and businesses carved sculptures using traditional tools of ice-carving artisans. Tim Pierce, executive chef and master ice-carver at the Samoset Resort in Rockport, assisted the community carvers with their creations.

This year, Winterfest is two days of outdoor activities downtown, with an eye on expanding into a week-long community festival in the years to come. Winterfest Week already has an culminating event, the longstanding U.S. National Toboggan Championships, now in its 24th year. Kicking things off Feb. 1 with some new activites, giant snow sculptures now enhance the Village Green, the library’s lawn, the Amphitheatre and the Snow Bowl. The Camden Downtown Business Group and the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce sponsored the sculptures.

On Saturday, kids used the temporary venue in Harbor Park, created and built by the Camden Snow Bowl and volunteer students from Zenith, to demonstrate their skiing skills on the short slope.

Sunday, Feb. 2, the CamJam competition heats up, with skiers and snowboarders hitting the manmade slope with rails and elements to vye for bragging rights and places. The CamJam competition kicks off at 1 p.m. The family fun continues over on Atlantic Avenue, so bundle up and head over.