the ice candle was first made in shimokawa, hokkaido. in shimokawa, there are few days in a year when the temperature exceeds 30 degrees below freezing. so this town is known as extreme cold. the members of “egg of columbus”, which is a town development idea semester in shimokawa, had thought about some ideas on how people enjoy a cold winter with snow. in 1985, they found a sentence, “...the flame moves in the ice block, it changes to the natural lamp-shade quickly, the flame in the natural and pale clear glass lights up in the garden fantastically...” this is from “live in north literary calendar, northern area column (kita no kurashi saiziki, hoppo-ken column)” written by ryuichi ito who was a professor of hokkaido university of education. he wrote about the candle which is made by scandinavian finland children. the egg of columbus got some hints to create the ice candle from that sentence. in 1986, the ice candle was created. they put a wish for people to be able to spend winter happily in it. in 1987, the ice candle was introduced on tv. from around that time, townspeople have made it at their own home. now, the ice candle is known by japanese nationwide and loved by people living in cold areas.