Gloria Carpenter of White Bear Lake wrote to the Pioneer Press last week of her desire to see a permanent ice palace in St. Paul. Seattle has the Space Needle, St. Louis has the Arch and San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge. A permanent, year-round, illuminated ice palace made of glass blocks on Harriet Island would put St. Paul on the map, Carpenter wrote.
Carpenter’s letter got Denny Harris of Roseville to weigh in. Harris has been a Winter Carnival volunteer since 1959 and the owner of one of the greatest carnival memorabilia collections of all time. Not only does Harris appreciate Carpenter’s call to action, but he has been lobbying for years to build a permanent ice palace. Harris knows every living Boreas and can assure us that they, too, are behind such a project.
In addition, Harris would move the commemorative monument for the 100-year ice palace that was built in 1986 in Phalen Park to a location on Kellogg Boulevard where people might more easily remember that we actually had an ice palace in 1986. Charlie Hall, Boreas XLVII, and others built that 1986 treasure with their own dough.
Harris and Carpenter are more than onto something. They are stating the obvious that we must make happen. It is cheerful to note that the Carnival is not dying. An old long-gone Vulcan, Klinker 1960, once told me that the carnival does not exist if you do not participate in it. But we are participating. And if we did so with even more fervor, we would make the nightly news as the Winter Capital of the country every year because, if you have been watching the nightly news lately, you know that the likes of Diane Sawyer and the rest of the suspects are absolutely astonished that it snows in the winter.
Why, to see us out frolicking in the Polar Vortex around our Ice Palace would put the New York types in a tizzy, just as the carnival’s founders intended back in the 19th century; look at the network publicity they get every year in Punxsutawney, Pa., just because some guy in a stovepipe hat holds up a rodent named Phil.
A permanent ice palace would do what both Carpenter and Harris believe it would do. It would give St. Paul a signature identification. The Red Bull Crashed Ice at the Cathedral almost does the trick, but Crashed Ice is fleeting. Nothing else comes close. A new minor league ballpark? Every city in America has a minor league ballpark.
The new light-rail line? Well, one of the selling points of us having to have light rail is that other cities are doing it. Not unique.
Ah, but a permanent ice palace on Harriet Island, illuminated and offering halls of memory and memorabilia, would give St. Paul an instant recognition. Oh, yeah, that’s where those people go outside in the middle of the winter and actually have a pageant and parades and girls who get tossed into the air from blankets. I don’t know, an old Eskimo tradition, I guess.
Even in July, that’s what people would say, which is the point Carpenter and Harris intend to make. Permanent. Won’t go away. Won’t melt. See it on all the postcards. And given the nature of lighting and audio technology these days, the mind reels at what might be accomplished to celebrate different events, the Fourth of July, Christmas, a Super Bowl, concerts.
Let’s not make the funding complicated. Private funding. A committee of past Boreases and Vulcanus Rexes, working in a rare truce, should be formed for purposes of soliciting the private donations required to raise the money.
We need to come to grips with our frozen reality. It’s who we are.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 1 to 4 p.m. weekdays on 1500ESPN.