‘I had a good run’: Pastry Chef Joe Hickel on his final Hotel Captain Cook gingerbread village display

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Imagine living in a village where houses are made of gingerbread and chocolate, and the snow of royal icing.

This place does exist — and has for the last 45 years in Downtown Anchorage — but for the man behind its creation, this year’s setup is bittersweet, as it’s the last time the famed village will be constructed by the hands of Pastry Chef Joe Hickel.

It was during the middle of the day when Hickel was rummaging through labeled plastic drawers deciding which figurine would go where. He steps up on the massive table, kneels down, and starts to slather white icing to mimic snow. He repeats this same process again and again, building what is the famed gingerbread village in the Hotel Captain Cook lobby.

“You’re on and off the table all the time because you want to make sure you got the balance [and] it doesn’t look crooked, so you just do this all day long,” Hickel said.

Hickel was 23 years old when he built his very first display called “Marina’s Village,” named after his oldest daughter. It was 3-by-5 feet and sat at the front desk counter.

“It had a couple houses and some snowmen, and I was brand new at this, and I found a recipe from a Wilton cookbook and it was trial and error,” he said.

Fast forward to 2023 and he’s marking his 45th year at creating sweet villages. His team starts planning for it in July, putting in nearly 400 hours of work, and then it takes about two weeks to set everything up.

“Every year when I see the board, I come up and go, ‘Okay, I’m walking away for a couple hours, I’m not doing this. I’m not quite ready,’” Hickel said.

Eventually, he starts carving out mountains from styrofoam and the magic comes together.

There’s no plan or design. Chef Hickel said he creates everything as he goes and the only thing that’s the same year after year are the figurines.

“Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, you can always change it,” he said.

However, this year’s creation is bittersweet. This is Hickel’s last year building the display.

“I retired as a pastry chef, but this is the last project of being a pastry chef, the Hotel Captain Cook,” he proclaimed. “I’m gonna miss it, it’s gonna be sad. I’m going to miss creating and hanging out with the people and talking to the people for two weeks, but yeah, it’s just time.”

Time for him to do what he’s done for the last 45 years, one last time.

“I had a good run and it’s ... man it was fun, I had so much fun.”

It’s been a project that was fun for not only him, but for so many it brought a smile to from all over the world for nearly five decades.

The big question everyone wants to know: Will anyone continue this for next year?

Chef Hickel says no, but that won’t erase the special feelings he felt over the years when passersby would stand and behold the spectacle.

“People come by and they go, ‘You started, you’re getting started! It’s happening!’” he said.

“That’s the best.”

You can watch the gingerbread village being built in real-time by clicking here.

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