56 TIME December 11, 2017
The first snowmaking machine was developed
in the 1940s, entirely by accident, when Canadian
researchers were studying the way ice forms on jet
engines. As part of their research, the researchers
sprayed water into a refrigerated wind tunnel—and
got an artificial snow squall for their efforts. In the
1950s, one of the first purpose-built snow machines
was patented in the U.S., based on the technique the
Canadians had stumbled across.
A modern snowmaking machine combines
the elegance of Hakaya’s work with the muscle of
Connecticut-based Tey Manufacturing, which
first brought the machines to market. The earliest
iterations used microscopic dirt particles and, later,
silver iodide as a nucleating agent. Increasingly, they
use a protein extracted from a type of bacterium
found on plant leaves. The protein causes water
to crystallize at comparatively high wintertime
temperatures, which is just what you want in the
process of snowmaking. Scientists thus developed
a way to irradiate and sterilize it, and it’s now used
as the preferred nucleating agent in the water used
in snow blowers. Pumped at high pressure through
an array of nozzles and fans, the water blasts into the
sky as a fine mist. There it crystallizes and drifts to
the ground as a reasonable approximation of snow.
A reasonable approximation, of course, will never
replace authentic snow—not the feel of it, the look
of it or the behavior of it. And it surely won’t replace
the enchantment of it, falling in proper flakes from
proper clouds, covering the ground in an unbroken
blanket, rather than in engineered trails crisscross-
ing a bleak brown landscape.
“The dream of skiing on Alpine snow is going
to go away,” says Zorzanello. The loss of the beauty
that once was the Alps is a just price for the damage
wrought by humans—and might serve as a sufficient
spur for us to begin to avoid doing more. □
The
temperature
in the
Dolomites
now hovers
near 50°F
during
the winter
season,
making
T-shirts
acceptable
ski wear.
A tunnel
offers
protection
from wind
but is less
needed
for the cold