Snow go: Heat streak dashes B.C. town's attempt at world's largest snowman

This story is part of CBC Daybreak North's series called The Comeback: Fort Nelson.

It chronicles how British Columbia's northernmost municipality has been hit by the loss of jobs and opportunities, and how people there are working to help the community survive and thrive in the coming years.  

A giant snowman in Northern B.C., built to be the world's largest, isn't surviving the streak of hot weather very well.

The massive creation in Fort Nelson is so big that its buttons are semi-truck tires, its jaunty scarf is a 60 metres-long-craft project, and there was even talk of bringing in a helicopter to set a hat atop its head.

"Very few people on earth have ever build a snowman as big as we have," said Cory Howdon, who helped create the snowman.

Fort Nelson was attempting to break the world record for biggest snowman for the town's Northern Lights Festival last weekend.

The festival itself is part of an initiative to put the town on the international map, attract more tourists and help revitalize the town's economy.

But then record-breaking heat hit across the province last week and the snowman began melting.

"We lost our ability to make snow because of our warm temperatures," Howdon said. "This is abnormal in a northern community."

The snowman was about six metres short of the world record  — set in the U.S. state of Maine by a snowman which was more than 37 metres high.

At its tallest, the Fort Nelson snowman was just over 32 metres but has shrunk considerably over the past days.

Still, Howdon said his town's creation may still be the biggest snowman in Canada.

"We're quite satisfied with what we have," he said. "It's a beautiful display and it's more than anything we can find on a Canadian record."

And, more importantly, building the snowman brought the town together — even though its giant tile smile is now starting to slide off.

"When the smile went up on that snowman, it changed the mood in this whole community," he said.