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Meet 'Chuffy,' the temporary snow tiger

Coquitlam snow sculptor Tiffany Yang has found a unique way to get people talking about endangered animal

Every year, when storms have dumped their worst, Tiffany Yang goes hunting for snow.

“I start piling and packing snow and stealing my neighbours snow off their drive ways,” she wrote The Tri-City News.

For this Coquitlam snow sculptor, all the pilfered white stuff goes into forming an icy endangered animal picked from a list that grows every year.

“My neighbours would drop by to ask what I will be making this year” she wrote. “It’s always a secret until they come by again to see the big reveal!”

This year, Yang sculpted a Siberian albino tiger and named her Chuffy, “as tigers can only chuff while cats purr.” With only 3,890 tigers left in the wild, these animals are within the ranks of the top 10 most endangered animals in the world.

The process is both painstaking and labour intensive, says Yang.

“Every time I learn something new about animals, I would note it down,” she wrote. “The dark stripes are painted on by hand from mud, no paint.”

When neighbourhood kids drop by to help or people pull over to take pictures Yang shares everything she’s learned about the animal.

“The magic of spreading awareness happens just like that. I love it,” she wrote. “As a bonus, people also have something ‘cool’ to talk about instead of complaining about the snow!”

Chuffy lasted a week before melting into a lump of ice.