By: Sue Davis, founder & former committee chair
This weekend the cities of Shorewood and Tonka Bay will celebrate an abbreviated Arctic Fever. There have been many iterations of the event over the last 20 years, its demise affected most notably by lack of snow due to climate change but also the loss of the dedicated staff and volunteers that conceived of and executed the annual community winter celebration. Originally this was a project of the Shorewood Park Commission with Shorewood staff and public works with cooperation of Tonka Bay and Excelsior council members and the Excelsior Library.
At the time of its inception, council member Laura Turgeon was its most ardent supporter. If Deephaven could host an annual family ice skating and hot chocolate event couldn’t Shorewood, with all our parks, come up with something better?
So, we thought bigger. Commission Chair Sue Davis had visited Quebec City for Carnaval de Quebec. https://carnaval.qc.ca/en/ Staff member Twila Grout’s sister-in-law was a master snow carver living in Ely, home of the Ely Winter Festival. https://www.elywinterfestival.com/ There are the St. Paul Winter Carnival and Plymouth Fire and Ice, established local events from whom to draw ideas. Communication director Julie Moore was relentless, securing contacts and looking for talent. Engineer Larry Brown committed his public works staff to logistics. He was known to talk about buying a used snow making machine.
We had endless ideas, lots of advice from Ely and a plan with multiple alternatives that could be rapidly deployed in the event of poor weather or lack of snow. We met monthly with our community partners throughout the year until December and then weekly up until the event. We did our best work at the last minute because of the weather. We had a contribution from the city for our budget but raised most of the money ourselves. Snow or no snow, the show must go on. We also had the best, most creative public works crew in the business when it came to execution with snow.
The lack of snow however has had the biggest effect on this event. The timing was originally chosen for its reliably cold and snowy weather and scheduled on the weekend before Martin Luther King Day so families could have a stay-cation. It grew from a modest ½ day in Freeman and Manitou Parks and at the Excelsior Commons to a glorious 3 day event at its highpoint before COVID. Families came from all over the metro area, outstate and even from Iowa, because there was so much to do this particular weekend in Shorewood, Tonka Bay and Excelsior. And it was virtually all free.
Ken and Jolene Theis always said this was one of their favorite trail rides in Freeman Park. They could bring the wagon if there wasn’t enough snow or they could bring the sleigh if there was. Either way, they were in the park for the day giving rides and taking pictures with their Hessians. They had been with us from the very beginning.
Arctic Fever has always been dog-friendly and we had a long relationship with Midwest Skijor Club. Skijor is a winter sport where a person on cross country skis is pulled by a dog on a harness fixed to the skier’s waist. The club started with us bringing out training equipment for teaching your dog to Skijor and would hold free clinics in the baseball diamonds for people who wanted to see if their dog would take the harness.
One year we had a huge skijor race. Entrants skijored in a track around Freeman Park, down the trail to Manitou Park, around Manitou and back. We hired a professional timer because that year they made this race a qualifier for their organization. We positioned a safety crew on Eureka Road at the trail crossing to stop automobile traffic for the racers. Public works for both Shorewood and Tonka Bay went above and beyond to create the race tracks and the access from the trail.
And then there was a blizzard the night before and everything had to be redone at 5 AM.
For the Fifth Anniversary of Arctic Fever we introduced the Mother-Daughter Tea on Sunday bringing the event up to 2 days. The first year we catered it ourselves at the South Shore Center, hoping for 40 guests. We presold 120 and had people at the door offering us cash to let them in without a reservation. Year 3 we began giving away an American Girl doll and our future was secured.
For 3 years we catered it out of the center and then moved it to the Bayview Event Center in Excelsior where it became the famous Princess Tea. We hired a harpist for every event regardless of location. The first year at Bayview we had a local dance school perform part of their recital for the girls.
When that became too costly we cut a deal with Lord Fletcher’s. Lord Fletcher’s agreed to call their public brunch the Sunday of Arctic Fever the “Princess Brunch” and in return we would have use of The Paddle Club and Pikes Place at no charge for the children’s entertainment and fun. Not having to pay for the facility enabled us to hire actresses who played Elsa and Anna from Frozen, hire face painters and provide personalized crowns for everyone. Reservations numbered in the 80’s for this so everybody benefited. At every event there were drawings for prizes, notably the American Girl doll.
For the Tenth Anniversary of Arctic Fever we were looking at a snowy year so we initiated the Snow Sculpture Garden in Badger Park and added the Friday night pizza party so the community could view and judge the sculptures. Arctic Fever officially became a 3 day event with the Friday night pizza party becoming one of the most popular activities, sculpture or no.
Ely educated us on how to build the snow cubes and public works set to work. Horizontal and vertical cubes were built using 4 x 8 plywood hinged boxes. Snow was scooped into the form and allowed to compact. After a few days the form could be removed and the base for the sculpture remained firm.
The Sculpture Garden event only went for 2 years, snow was at a premium and we were already seeing major climate change in relation to our snowfall amount. But those 2 years public works was in their glory, harvesting snow wherever they could. In addition to the cubes for carving they made a huge sliding hill in Freeman on the east side of Eddy Station. We called it Sugar Mountain and it was a park amenity unto itself.
The inception of this event also ensured that the Friday night pizza party sponsored by Joey Nova’s Pizza and the Excelsior Brewery henceforth became the kick-off party for the Arctic Fever weekend.
Even with minimal snow years the dog sled rides were the most popular attraction in Freeman. People would line up before 10 AM and things often would get testy because we had to set limits. Over the years we had several providers but the best was Joel Kersting with his Suomi Hills Kennel out of Swatara Minnesota. He drove 4 hours to get here, would bring 3 teams and run 2 sleds. He would drive the first sled with 4 riders in it and have a second sled tethered to the back where anyone 14 or older could “drive” it. Joel “retired” to build his business up north, http://sleddogmn.com/ for rides and tours if you are in his neighborhood.
Arctic Fever was born out of the wish to get people out of their houses and into the community during the coldest and snowiest part of Minnesota winter and its popularity exploded from years 3 through 12. The Park Commission in the early 2000’s initiated several programs influenced by the DNR Grant program “No Child Left Inside” including summer programs like Music in the Park and Free Fun Fridays at Freeman.
But ongoing climate change compounded by the COVID years necessitated downsizing the event and subsequent staff turnover resulted in the loss of institutional knowledge and commitment. That is not to say a snowy year could not revive the event. Let it snow!
