SKOWHEGAN — Six inches of new snow Friday and help from some community volunteers made for idyllic conditions Saturday for the popular Box Sled Derby Race, in which children bring homemade cardboard boxes fashioned into snow sleds to race for prizes and trophies at Lake George Regional Park.

The race and ice fishing derby on the lake were all part of the 24th annual Winter Carnival and fishing derby at Lake George.

Creativity was the key in the derby Saturday – creativity and spectacular crashes, in which the children race, tipping and slipping down the man-made hill of snow, cushioned along the way with hay bales and help from the local Boy Scout Troop 403.

There were tractors, bulldozers and trucks, along with princess racers, a wedge of Swiss cheese, a Three Blind Mice sled and a king-size toilet complete with cardboard flush and real toilet paper.

Sadie Hanna Ellis, 6, of Skowhegan was dressed in purple and blue with the sled decked out in princess crowns and jewels in Elsa’s Palace, from the Disney movie “Frozen.”

“I like Elsa, so I wanted to make an Elsa castle,” she said.

There was a Ninjago Lego ninja sled and one sled truck covered in Lay’s potato chip bags.

There were 37 entrants, down from 40 last year. Park director Jeff McCabe said people hesitated to make cardboard box sleds this year because of the lack of snow. Some years, he said, there are more than 100 racers.

“We brought in snow,” McCabe said. “Peter Clark came out with a front end loader and actually moved any piles we could find at the park. John Lynch trucked snow in from town and dumped it at the top of the hill, and Steve Spaulding came and helped move snow around with his tractor.

“And yesterday, what a gift to get this natural snowfall.”

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