Cold Night
2011
My feet are cold—the car is cold—the car sounds like a bucket of bolts Rolling down a hill— it’s so cold that my breath falls like ice from the roof...
Old Saint Paul
By W. A. Alexander ● 2011
Old Saint Paul, up and down your ripped up sidestreets, kids roam, hands deep in pockets, snapping ice with each step. Their mothers poke out of houses, “Time to come inside,” they say, waiting to hang blankets off shoulders and brush the child’s hair from his face.
Winter Wonderland and the Hunt for Treasure
By Brie Goellner ● 2011
The scramble begins. The quickest gets the matching gloves. Snowsuit on . . . wool socks on . . . boots on . . . I just need a hat and gloves. A lone glove lies on the wood floor in the entryway. Where’s its mate? Hats, scarves, and mismatched gloves fly out of the wicker basket. “Ah ha!” It sits at the bottom calling to its twin. I’m ready, we’re set, let’s go! We pile into the minivan, shovels in the back. The best part about searching for the Winter Carnival medallion isn’t the digging. No, at age eight I prefer to lie in the snow or sit and watch the people shoveling around us.
Welcome to Mount Como
2010
The sign mysteriously appears when the snow starts, at the foot of the golf club driveway, announcing the start of the ski season at Como Park: “Welcome to Mount Como.” When my husband tells a friend visiting from Switzerland, a snowboard instructor, that his kids took downhill ski lessons there, the Swiss fellow looks puzzled. “But there are no hills,” he says.
Weather
2010
The forty-fifth parallel runs through Saint Paul, Minnesota. This parallel is generally considered the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole. This is irrelevant to our everyday lives with the exception of one truth: it is the cause of our extremely unpredictable weather, a concept that consumes us. We talk about it with co-workers, we talk about it on dates, we analyze it on the TV, we use it as an excuse for being late, we complain about it, we use it to avoid awkward gaps in uncomfortable conversation, and most importantly, we live in it.
November
By Diane Wilson ● 2010
I raise my baton, a rake, a half-chewed stick: dry leaves crackle, snap tympani for the horn toot of geese flying south.
A Fanatic’s Guide to Getting the Most out of the Weather in Saint Paul
2010
For those of us who think about, study, discuss, photograph, worship, and otherwise adore the weather, Saint Paul is a miniature atmospheric playground.
Skiing on Pike Island
2009
In the fall after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, hundreds of Dakota women and children were force-marched for seven days to Fort Snelling from their reservation in western Minnesota. That winter, over fifteen hundred Dakota were detained on Pike Island below the fort. Under military patrol and with only thin blankets, the prisoners watched this wooded island fill with snow.
I (Heart) Swede Hollow
2009
I had just arrived at my new house—the house I bought without ever seeing. In my life, at that moment, that decision made perfect sense. It was a time when things much more unthinkable than buying a house without ever seeing it in person made perfect sense too. An unthinkable world had been my reality for the last year: New Orleans AFTER. I was gone eight years and was just now returning to Minnesota, where I had grown up.
Some Cheers for Winter
2009
My sister phones. "Storm!" she says, disgusted. "They're calling this a storm. No wind, maybe an inch of snow. It's winter, for Pete's sake, we're supposed to have snow. Get a grip!" My sister is not one of your hardy outdoors types, but we're Iron Rangers, and even though between us we've spent six decades in Saint Paul, we retain the Ranger's right to scorn urban wimpiness. It's the TV weather people who have set her off. "They are trying to brainwash us into weather wimps."
My First Winter in St. Paul
2009
I was born and raised in Somalia, then lived many years in Dallas. After I graduated from the University of North Texas, I moved to Saint Paul in search of a job and a wife. It was January 2004, and the temperature, with windchill had dropped to -40° F.
Capitol Winchester
By Sasha Aslanian ● 2009
My furnace was a young pup in 1936 when Saint Paul hit its all-time low temperature of -34° F. Capitol Winchester sits like Santa Claus in my basement. He's entering his eightieth winter.