Winter Carnival fans had better be thinking cold, organizers say

Maybe this is what happens when you put Vulcans in charge of an ice-fishing contest.

With the St. Paul Winter Carnival less than two weeks away and the weather feeling downright balmy, organizers decided Friday to call off a new fishing competition hosted by the carnival legend's roguish ushers of spring.

With more heat on the horizon, other planned cold-weather events also could be in jeopardy, including a pond hockey tournament and car racing on ice with gear head Jesse James from TV's "Monster Garage."

"Don't blame this on the Vulcans," said fishing contest coordinator and former Vulcanus Rex Tom Barrett, who had originally planned for a crew to drill about 2,000 holes into White Bear Lake. "We do like it warm, but believe it or not, we were hoping for a little colder weather."

Carnival organizers said there is a bright side to all these mild temps: It makes a fine day for watching a parade. But ice is the bedrock of the Winter Carnival, and its unseasonable thinness is complicating things for the largely volunteer-run festival.

Officials say they are fretting daily over the latest forecasts, which show temperatures in the 30s for almost all of next week. Meanwhile, they're furiously mapping out contingency plans.

The Jan. 29 fishing contest has been replaced with "A Hot Time in the Park," featuring tethered hot-air balloon rides, chili, free fishing poles, prizes and Vulcan fire truck jaunts at Como Park.

Instead of learning how to ice fish, kids will try "snow fishing," which actually doesn't involve fish at all. The young anglers will simply practice casting with their new fishing poles into the snow.

The Minnesota Wild will make a call early next week on its Lake Phalen pond hockey tournament, which the team had to cancel last year when temperatures climbed.

"This is deja vu all over again, which is really maddening," said Wayne Petersen, the Wild's director of advertising and promotions. "It sure ain't the Minnesota winters we used to have."

Tim Smalley, a water safety specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, compares the ice to a thin layer of pizza dough stretched over a hoop. If you put a few marbles on the dough, it begins to cave in. Place too many marbles close together, and eventually the dough will break.

Every carnival event on natural ice must meet a minimum thickness to get a permit from Ramsey County. A pond hockey rink should have at least 15 inches of quality ice, Petersen said. The last measurements he's seen from Lake Phalen came in at about 10 inches. The strongest ice is clear — unlike the cloudy, milky kind that now caps most ponds after cycles of freezing and thawing.

"Mush stuff does not count," said Steve Dunsworth, president of the Twin Cities Ice Racing Association, which puts on the annual ice races at Lake Phalen.

Dunsworth said he will probably move the carnival's Feb. 4-5 races to Lake Mille Lacs at Garrison, Minn. No matter which location they choose, the show must go on. Dunsworth said he had to "guarantee the guys at 'Monster Garage' " an opportunity to film the tattooed star of the show, Jesse, zooming around in a souped-up entry with a 600-horsepower Chevy 454 engine.

Dunsworth said his group will determine a location by Jan. 26. This year's winter — the area's warmest start to the season ever recorded — follows a general warming trend that has forced local ice racers to move further north every winter for their fun. They used to race as far south as La Crosse, Wis., but haven't done so in at least 10 years, Dunsworth said.

One of the most popular carnival sights, the annual centerpiece ice sculpture in Rice Park, might lose some of its wow factor if the warm weather continues.

As he did last year for his ice Capitol, master carver Larry Fischer wants to rest the sculpture on a broad platform requiring about 200 ice blocks, each weighing 700 pounds, harvested from Lake Phalen.

The elevation of the carving — this year, a replica of an old St. Paul schoolhouse — heightens the dramatic effect. But the ice at Phalen could be too thin to reap that much ice, Fischer fears.

The good news is that the heat won't scrap plans for either the main portion of the schoolhouse sculpture or the ice-carving contest entries, because they are made with commercially frozen ice blocks. The snow sculptures also are still a go because they will be made from shavings from the Roseville Oval. The problem comes after their creation, with the possibility of rapid melting. A few years ago, a crumbling, 20-foot-tall Statue of Liberty had to be knocked down just days after it was finished to protect bystanders. And Fischer remembers another recent competition in which the sculptures wasted away even before they could be judged.

"We need it to be below freezing," Fischer said. "Everybody, pray for that if you want to see an ice sculpture."

Laura Yuen can be reached at lyuen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5498.

On thin ice These Winter Carnival-related events are endangered by the recent warm weather:

  • Hooked on Carnival ice-fishing contest. The Jan. 29 event is now "A Hot Time in the Park" featuring rides on a tethered hot-air balloon, fishing-related prizes, chili and Vulcan appearances in Como Park.
  • The Feb. 4-5 Softball on Ice Tournament at Lake McCarron in Roseville.
  • The Feb. 4-5 Car Races on Ice at Lake Phalen.
  • The Jan 28-29 Minnesota Wild Pond Hockey Championships at Lake Phalen.

Visit http://www.winter-carnival.com/ for the latest updates.

Copyright 2006 Pioneer Press.