In Minnesota we love to complain about the weather. It’s part of our DNA. And while it’s OK for us to complain, it’s a different story when someone else is making the jab.
In 1885, a New York reporter wrote that, in winter, St. Paul was, “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation.”
That was too much.
In response, a group of St. Paul business leaders organized the first St. Paul Winter Carnival to show that not only was St. Paul inhabitable in winter, but its residents also fully embraced the season. The celebration opened on February 1, 1886. It included parades, curling, skating, ice polo and the construction of an enormous ice palace set alight with a dramatic fireworks display.
Organizers for the carnival took inspiration from Montreal, which held its first winter festival in 1883. When a smallpox epidemic forced Montreal to cancel its festival in 1886, St. Paul organizers saw an opportunity.
They invited Montreal’s ice palace architect, A.C. Hutchinson, to Minnesota to design the first ice palace in the U.S.
From 1937 to 1942, St. Paul city architect, and Minnesota’s first registered African American architect, Clarence “Cap” Wigington, designed the ice palaces. Not all were built due to unseasonably warm weather.
But the grandest ice palace was built in 1992 to coincide with Minnesota’s hosting of the Super Bowl. It was 166 feet tall, used 15 million pounds of ice and cost nearly $2 million dollars. The most recent ice palace was built for the 2004 winter carnival. In 2015, event organizers constructed a royal courtyard.
The winter carnival also includes pageantry. Looking again to Montreal, event organizers adapted their legend of the Ice King and Queen Aurora to create King Boreas and the Queen of the Snows. Organizers also drew on Germanic tradition to create the mischievous Vulcanus Rex, god of fire, and his Krewe, which represents the power of spring to wreak havoc on winter.
Each year, the carnival ends with the dethroning of Boreas by the Vulcan Krewe. Boreas bids farewell to his winter playground, and — along with his brothers, the Four Winds — leaves his realm until the following year.
The Minnesota Historical Society has documented the winter carnival from its earliest days. Hamp Smith, former reference librarian at the Gale Family Library, chuckles a bit when thinking about the society’s collection.
“The carnival reflects the attitude of 19th-century Minnesotans that, since winter could not be avoided, it might as well be enjoyed,” he said.
Minnesota Historical Society staff.