Douglas Mack
The Saint Paul Winter Carnival, which is one of my favorite things about living in the Twin Cities and a brilliantly counterintuitive celebration of one of Minnesota’s most infamous attributes. It supposedly began as a rebuttal to a New York reporter’s claim that Minnesota was “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation in the winter”—a view still held by plenty of people from warmer climes. But as I walked through Rice Park, marveling at the intricate ice sculptures and watching bundled-up kids (and adults) toss snowballs at each other, I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to be in some warmer, more boring place.