More than a half-million people visited Rice Park and the seven-story ice palace towering over festivities during the extended 132nd St. Paul Winter Carnival, which wrapped up Sunday.
“We’re very happy with how the 17 days went,” said Deb Schaber, president of the St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation, which sponsors the annual winter festival. The Winter Carnival expanded from its usual 11 days to 17 to coincide with Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis.
“It was a beautiful masterpiece, and it brought worldwide attention,” Schaber said of the carnival.
Official attendance figures are still being tallied, she said.
The Ice Palace, which cost $800,000 and was paid for through private and corporate donations, will be dismantled this week. Schaber expected the work to be completed by Thursday or Friday, with a final inspection on Monday. The palace was a smaller version of the ice structure organizers first envisioned for the Winter Carnival. That plan had a price tag in the millions and was scrapped in October.
Ice from the palace will be carted to a vacant lot to melt. It will not be allowed to melt into waterways or Twin Cities lakes — or anybody’s basement, Schaber said. The ice blocks came from Green Lake in west-central Minnesota and care will be taken so any organisms from that lake do not get into metro water.
The ice palace was the big draw at the Winter Carnival, but there will not be another cube castle next year. Organizers are looking at “some kind of ice structure” for next year, though, Schaber said.
Some new events from 2018 are likely to return, she said. The Ladies Day with bingo and vendors and the fancy hotdish contest will be back.
Schaber said the hundreds of Winter Carnival volunteers make the festival what it is. “From ice bartenders, parade marshals, palace guards, to office help, they are the reason the coolest celebration on earth is 132 years old,” she said.
In her first year as president of the foundation, Schaber says she learned the event is like family, not just for those in the organization, “but for the whole city of St. Paul.”
“I learned that quickly,” she said.
Comments on this year’s Winter Carnival or suggestions for future years can be sent to info@wintercarnival.com.
Copyright 2018 Pioneer Press.
