Imagine That!

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Take yourself back to your 8 year old self. Close your eyes. Imagine a castle with high walls as transparent as glass, the main entry guarded on each side by towering crystal dragons. Imagine that you live here! A medieval knight in armor stands at the ready to guide you into the castle’s magically gleaming courtyard. The floor beneath your feet is the purest white. Off in the inner reaches of the castle you catch a glimpse of a diamond sword embedded in an imposing crystalline stone. Your quest is to make your way to that sword and claim it as your own. From somewhere in the background comes the sound of singing. You turn, and there before you is an exquisite princess. She leads you up a daunting staircase and you wonder where on Earth you could be going, until you reach the top, which opens onto what seems like a mile long pair of giant slides. She challenges you to a race down this vast, steep slope.  Sound good so far? 

Oh, I should have said, “Put on your warmest coat, muffler, snow pants & boots, along with your hat and mittens. NOW, close your eyes and imagine a castle....”  This isn’t just imagination (except for the part about actually living in the castle). This is real, and it’s right down the road, a hop, skip, and a jump from us here in Western Wisconsin. It’s the 2022 Stillwater Zephyr Theatre Ice Palace Maze. And it’s fantastic.

The Ice Palace Maze opened on January 14th this year, and will stay open through mid-February, with the possibility of extending the run if the cold weather continues. Gary Bird and I were able to visit on opening night. Now, unlike kids, who have this insane ability to not seem to ever feel cold, Gary and I kept to the warmer activities available at the Ice Palace Maze. We imbibed hot chocolate and spent some time warming our digits near one of the bonfires located in the castle’s courtyard. An ice bar nearby served up beer and wine for those more daring than we were. We lost ourselves in the meandering ½ mile maze, oohing and aahing at the frozen sculptures and finding hidden figurines embedded in the ice block walls. There was a delightful surprise around every corner as we searched for the way out of the puzzling labrynth of ice and snow. When we began to feel a little frostbitten, we ventured inside the Zephyr Theatre building for a warm snack, and that satisfying sensation that happens when the feeling starts coming back into the fingers and toes after having spent time adventuring outside in the middle of a Minnesota (or Wisconsin) winter.

I remember, as a kid, a huge snow fall that we had in Michigan. It was followed by a cold snap that lasted more than a week. The snow was so deep that we and our neighbors created snow tunnels between our yards. They were so sturdy, even our parents ventured out to give them a try.  For days and days we tended our tunnels, imagining ourselves in medieval castles, in underground subway trains, in make-believe lands of cotton candy—I don’t remember feeling an ounce of cold until we had to come inside for lunch. Then that glorious warming-up, with the aid of Campbell’s Chicken Soup, a grilled cheese, and a toasty blanket, was the prize we had earned. If I had seen Zephyr Theatre’s Ice Palace Maze back when I was 8 years old, I would have thought I had died and gone to Winter Heaven.

If you visited the Zephyr’s Maze last year, the 2022 Ice Palace Maze exceeds . While the 2021 maze boasted 1500 blocks of ice (at 200 lbs each), 2022 contains 2900 blocks--they couldn’t add a few more to make it and even 3000?  And it is taller and more majestic than it was in 2021. In fact, one website bills it as the largest ice maze in the United States.

Perhaps the most popular attraction at the Palace is the afore mentioned pair of ice slides. 50 feet long and as slick as, well, ice—the well-insulated-young-at-heart zoom down the racing ramps to see if they can beat their buddy to the bottom. Then they climb back up the ice block steps to do it again, and again, and again. Children from 5 to 105, scream with delight and exhilaration as they slide onto the white fluffy base. It certainly is a slippery slope!

Last year about this time, I wrote a column for the Bird’s Eye View about bucket lists, and in it I mentioned Nelson’s-on-the-Rush, in Salem, Wisconsin, where you can visit Roger Nelson’s artesian-wells ice sculptures. They are not sculpted by hand like the Zephyr’s ice sculptures, but they are just as magical. At the time of this writing Gary and I have not been to see them this season, but I did check on Facebook and it looks like things are going gangbusters over there as well.

Whichever side of the St Croix you decide to explore during the height of the Winter of 2022, I highly recommend taking advantage of what these creative, inventive neighbors of ours have done to turn the bleak, mid-winter into a wonderland for us.

The following links are information on seeing both the ZT Ice Palace Maze, and Nelson’s-On-The-Rush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlmrkbnB8fI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BcpKIch0Kc

https://www.facebook.com/stillwaterzephyrtheatre/videos/982516235977394/

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nelsons-on-rush-river

https://www.facebook.com/103621035037465/videos/617052892924857/

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