By Kaomi Goetz | Almanac
Kaomi Goetz is a reporter for Almanac covering Greater Minnesota for TPT Twin Cities PBS. Her work is made possible with support from the Otto Bremer Trust.
It will take an estimated 4,000 blocks of ice to build a seven-story ice palace to crown the 132nd St. Paul Winter Carnival this year. The People’s Ice Palace will be located on the south side of Rice Park in downtown St. Paul. The six-tower structure will debut fourteen years after the last ice palace in 2004.
But curiously, the 800-pound ice blocks aren’t coming from Lake Phalen or even from nearby Lake Harriet in Minneapolis or Lake Minnetonka. Instead, the Ice Board of Governors, the non-profit fundraising arm for the palace, chose to harvest the ice blocks from Green Lake in Spicer, Minnesota – 105 miles away.
“I would say it’s really because of three things,” Ice Board of Governors Co-chair Dan Stoltz said. “The first thing is the clarity of the ice in Green Lake is absolutely clear. Its beauty and clarity is second to none.”
Second, Stoltz said weather conditions favored the ice from the western part of the state. The ice was thicker than what could be found locally. And that meant fewer blocks would be needed from an economics standpoint.
A final reason was circumstance. Wee-Kut Ice Company of New London, Minnesota was already harvesting ice on Green Lake for their community’s own festival. Their operation was already in place, representing another cost advantage for the estimated $800,000 palace sticker price. That almost certainly sealed the decision for Green Lake.
“Number one, you have to go where there’s equipment,” said Bob Olsen, an ice palace historian.
This year’s St. Paul Winter Carnival nearly went without an ice palace. Despite being a prominent feature in the first carnival in 1886, an ice palace is far from an annual feature. The last palace was in 2004, then another in 1992 that coincided with the Super Bowl that year. The illuminated 166-foot tall palace at Harriet Island drew two million visitors but also cost double the projections, effectively derailing the St. Paul Winter Carnival Association.
But with a Super Bowl LII looming this year, Stoltz said there was ‘a huge groundswell’ of support to get one built. “If there ever was a year to do it, this is it,” Stoltz added.
Stoltz said through private donations and sponsors, boosters have raised about 80 percent of the estimated cost. Organizers will look to the public for the remainder; individual ice blocks can be sponsored starting at $25 a piece at wintercarnival.com.
Finances aside, harvesting ice from Green Lake presented a few challenges. Ice booster Dan Stoltz said Wee-Kut had to apply for permits from Kandiyohi County to harvest and transport the blocks. It will also take 50 truckloads to transport 80 blocks of ice at a time.
Officials said environmental concerns should be minimized. Ice Board of Governor Tom Keller said the operation does not severely deplete Green Lake. According to Keller, the amount of ice harvested amounts to one weekend of natural evaporation of the lake in July. And he said since particulate matter tends to fall to the bottom of lakes during the winter months, only clear water is cut from the lake.
“Green Lake is one of the cleanest and clearest in all of Minnesota,” Keller said.
After the festival closes, he said the ice blocks will be deposited at a commercial location north of Minneapolis.
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