Winter Carnival

It's Winter Carnival time in Saint Paul. The "urban legend" about this goes something like this: Sometime in the late 19th century a New York City newspaper referred to Saint Paul as being a frozen Siberia. That led the city leaders to create a festival to demonstrate there is life in winter in Minnesota and in Saint Paul.

My older daughter  and I went to Rice Park this morning to see the ice sculptures. The weather forecast for tomorrow is for temperatures well above freezing, and I thought if we didn't go today we might not be able to see them! (Update on Monday, January 30. I was right -- the sculptures are melting fast.)

Here's what we found.

Perhaps the detail in the photo is not good -- this is a polar bear bowling -- thus Ice Bowl! Without something to give perspective it may be hard to understand how big this is. The polar bear is at least 6 feet tall.

This is Lion King. Perhaps this scene came to the mind of the artist because the Lion King musical is being performed again in a theater in Minneapolis. (It actually previewed here before going to Broadway -- many, many years ago.)

I can only call this one Ice Horses or perhaps it should be Ice Pegasus.

And here truly is an Ice Bar!

Across the sidewalk from the Ice Bar is a tent with musicians from the McNally School of Music. It amused me that the song being performed was Walking in Sunshine. Well, I guess we were walking in sunshine, but it seems like a summer song, not right at the place with an Ice Bar.

One side of the park is lined with a wall. I couldn't find any way to get a good photo of this long wall because the adjacent side walk was lined with food trucks -- yes, that phenomenon has hit Saint Paul.

The wall in done as a checkerboard with historical photos in a vinyl inset.

The first photo below shows an Ice Castle. I'm guessing this one is from the  year in which Minnesota hosted the Super Bowl. I can remember three Ice Castles since I have lived in Minnesota. I've seen two and the Super Bowl Castle is the one I missed -- so that's the reason for this guess.

Above is a downhill evening race of some sort. I've heard stories about how there used to be events such as this from the Capitol area down into the business area. I'm guessing this photo comes from the late 1930s.  Now with a freeway between these two areas, such things never happen.


On each side of the ice displays carvers were still busy.Here is a photo that shows some of the steps.

I think this Ice Sculpture event is quite unique. I know one city in northern China does the same thing. Does it happen elsewhere? Hope you enjoy.