OTTAWA -- You may sometimes feel winter drag on, but one Ottawa woman is not letting that dim her creativity.

Dr. Mary Naciuk is family doctor and rural emergency room physician. She spent some of her free time this weekend building a majestic snow dragon in front of her south Ottawa home.

"It's just fun to get outside and do something creative," she told CTV News on Sunday.

There was plenty of snow to use, after Ottawa saw a record 21 cm of snow on Saturday.

She said that after her husband cleared the driveway, the pile of snow left behind lent itself to being turned into a magnificent dragon, but it takes more than just the right kind of snow to make a sculpture like this.

Naciuk tells CTV News a shovel, a butter knife, a spoon and even a blowtorch were used to give the dragon its sharp edges and defined scales.

"Anything pointy with a small detail is really hard to do with just your fingers or the butter knife and spoon I was using, so (the blowtorch) just makes a fine point," she said.

Her son tweeted about it on Saturday and Naciuk says many people have stopped to take a look.

"A lot of people stop on their way to the ice rink and have a look and take pictures. It's kind of fun," she said.

It was a welcome relief to spend some time working on something creative outdoors, Naciuk said.

"Get outside, get some exercise, clear your mind, do something that is not COVID for a few hours. It obeys all the rules. It was great," she said, adding that the dragon took her about five hours to build.

She's been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic for months. 

"It's been a steep learning curve. It's been exhausting," she said. "A lot of the time is learning how to deliver care to people and maintain all the precautions that we need to. That’s been hard. A lot of people are not able to work from time to time, so we fill a lot of extra shifts. It's been a lot more hours of work than it used to be, that's for sure."

Naciuk returns to work on Monday after a weekend of respite but says if the conditions are right—a nice mild day, a good snowfall, and some free time—another sculpture may well appear.

With reporting from CTV's Christina Succi.