Other states, other lives, other souls

Lately Minnesota has been rebranding itself from being part of the Upper Midwest (i.e. flyover country) to being True North.   We are proud of having the second coldest winter in the lower 48, after North Dakota, even though global warming is doing a number on our bragging rights.  We have a friend whose son has been working the night shift making snow this year in our big park, which has become an Olympic level cross-country ski venue.  One of the races had to be cancelled in Minneapolis this year due to weather too warm to keep the trail in competitive shape.  While our snow cover in Minneapolis and St. Paul has become somewhat problematic in recent years, we can still count on a winter of five months that must be embraced, or at least touched, in order to avoid depression, sitting around inside, enervation, and weight gain.

The new tourism slogan refers to all the fun that can be had in Minnesota throughout the year. But for me, finding my True North means adapting to the winter climate in a way that is joyful. To quote myself from our winter Solstice ritual ending:

Fear not, for winter’s visit has an end.
Go forth with fire and cloak and greet this friend!

From those of us who choose not to be snowbirds or are still working, we have created a winter action posse in the Twin Cities.  Over the years our group has developed events that get us through the long winter in good spirits.  We start with an outdoor Halloween celebration or Samhain (Day of the Dead). We decorate a piece of our local woods and take our costumed friends on a journey through the dark to an undisclosed location where fire, food and drink can be found, along with indoor options for the wimps. This is not yet winter, but it signals that cooling weather will not cause us to retreat indoors. Next comes  “Kill a Tree for Christ”, or KATFC, in mid-December. We go to a Christmas tree farm, find a halfway decent tree, build a fire, pass the hot chocolate and schnapps, and head back to somebody’s house for a Sunday night potluck.  Some of us just do the potluck now, since we don’t have trees.

Next comes our Winter Solstice ritual, just before Christmas.  It must be held outside, currently on a hill overlooking a frozen lake. It consists of 45-60 minutes outside, followed by the ubiquitous potluck.  Some people try to attend only the inside part, but that is frowned upon.

the king’s cake and a little cross dressing

swans a swimming in soup

partridge in a pear tree salad

After the Christmas holidays, which revert to family events, our posse as of late has celebrated Twelfth Night, AKA Epiphany, on the 5^th of January.  This is another excuse to come up with creative food ideas and costumes and force ourselves to go out for a winter walk after dark.  Nothing says party like cross-dressing and finding the hidden baby in the cake.

The first Saturday in February are the Loppet cross-country ski races.

For the non-racers among us there is a Luminary Loppet, a nighttime walk or ski around one of the chain of lakes that is lit with thousands of ice luminaries and features stops for fire dancers, ice instrument music and ice sculptures.

Our posse adds to it by starting from our townhouse, driving a short distance to a beach with our skis, and skiing across a second lake and through a canal to the Luminary Loppet lake. We return the way we came, on ski’s and head back to our house for–wait for it–another potluck.

Despite the warming trend, there remains a part of the state that can reliably be said to be True North. It is the part that touches Canada, from International Falls to the Gunflint Trail into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).  Twenty years ago our friend Susan started an annual cross-country ski weekend at a YMCA camp on the edge of the BWCAW.

Our group of 25 to 30 people occupies two lovely log cabins for three to four days.  People sign up for turns at meal prep and clean up.  Day times are taken up by languorous breakfasts followed by at least a couple of hours of skiing, followed by a late lunch and a second ski outing (for some). After dinner come reading or games by the fire and either dancing or singalongs.  Over the years we have seen our children grow into serious skiers, drop out for millennial pleasures, and return with spouses. Some of us originators have started to age out of skiing the rather treacherous back country trails, in favor of better designed but less thrilling trails near the town of Ely.  We never miss our night time slot at the wood-fired sauna by the lake.  Since we are often naked, teens/families and adults have their own times.  The sauna is HOT, HOT, HOT.  As each person reaches their personal boiling point, s/he opens the door on lakeside and scurries down the runway in socks to the rectangular lantern-lit opening in the lake ice with the ladder down for immersing in the icy water.  Full head-duck or not this year?  Of course!  We return up to the sauna deck, bodies still heated from the inside out, and gaze at the myriad stars above the lake.  Then we hurry back around to the front entrance and start the boil-freeze process over again.  Over twenty years some of us have become more self-conscious about baring our aging bodies. Not to be tolerated!  Tradition is tradition.  Finnish saunas have enabled northern European country denizens to embrace winter and stay hardy.  I remember well a splendid starry night when some of us skied back to our log cabin in our swim suits, reveling in the sting of cold air and bodies free of heavy parkas and mittens.    I also remember skiing out across a lake in below zero weather when my metal earrings froze my ear lobes and stuck to my neck.  Winter is not to be toyed with, but neither is it to be shunned.