A closer look at flyover land

December festivals, part 1

The month of December is an exceptionally busy one for this festival-fond state. To try and get as much coverage as possible without making a web page that’s a mile long, I’m going to report weekly this month. Today’s installment will include events through Sunday, Dec. 5. Check back next Monday for the following week.

St. Paul
A Victorian Christmas at the Ramsey House
Dec. 1-4
The beautiful Alexander Ramsey House will be decorated to the hilt in period decorations—and there just might be cookies coming out of the wood-fired stove. Reservations recommended.

Minneapolis
Holidazzle
Dec. 2-5
Truly a parade of lights, with life-size fairy tale characters decked out in splendid lit-up costumes. Allow extra time for traffic and parking, and if you’re planning on dining before or after, make reservations ahead or be prepared to wait.

Northfield
St. Olaf Christmas Festival
Dec. 2-5
This popular annual event is nearly sold out, but you can hear it on MPR, or check local TV listings—many stations nationally will carry it.

Bemidji
Lefse Cook-off Festival
Dec. 3
Boy, if there was one festival I could attend this season, I’d be tempted to choose this one. A lefse contest? Can I judge? Please?

Crookston
Winter Wonderland
Dec. 3
Sleigh rides, bonfires, luminary-lined streets.

Monticello
Home for the Holidays
Dec. 3
Santa leads the parade in a horse-drawn buggy, which will be used for visitor rides while Santa visits the little ones.

Owatonna
Christmas in the Village
Dec. 3-4
Stop by the Steele County Historical Society and enjoy horse-drawn sleigh rides, a lavish cookie sale, true wassail, and visit Santa. On Saturday, tour highly decorated historic homes.

Minneapolis
No Coast Craft-o-Rama
Dec. 3-4
Independent crafters make the most of the wonderful Midtown Global Market to display and sell their wares. You’ll find fun items here that are often unlike most of what you’d see at other craft shows.

St. Cloud
8th Annual Winter Nights & Lights Parade
Dec. 4
Bring your camp chairs and a thermos of cocoa, and usher in the holiday season with Santa and the Grinch. Stores open for your shopping pleasure.

St. Paul
Grand Meander
Dec. 4
Kick off the holiday shopping and noshing with a stroll down Grand Avenue’s 30-some blocks of independent (mostly) retailers and restaurants.

Annandale
Immigrants’ Christmas
Dec. 4
Visit the Pioneer Park and see it dressed for Christmas long ago. Enjoy live music, shopping, and fry bread and stew.

Le Sueur
W.W. Mayo House Candle Light Tour
Dec. 4
Tour the tiny home once inhabited by one of the founders of the Mayo Clinic.

Grand Rapids
A Logging Camp Christmas
Dec. 4
Dress warmly—you’ll be walking outdoors at the Forest History Center while observing lumberjacks in action and horses pulling carriages, before visiting the cook’s shack to see how lumberjacks celebrated decades ago.

Wabasha
Old-Fashioned Christmas
Dec. 4
Christmas caroling, cookie walks, artists’ studio tours, horse-drawn wagon rides, Santa, and cookie decorating. Bonus: bring a canned good or unwrapped new toy for free admission to the National Eagle Center open house.

Biwabik
Weihnachtsfest
Dec. 4
Horse-drawn trolley rides, children’s musical, ethnic foods, Christmas carols all reflect the town’s ethnic heritage.

Caledonia
Winter Wonderland
Dec. 4-5
Parades, barn quilt tours, balloon launches, and the Historical Society’s Old-Fashioned Christmas. And—a hot air balloon rally!

Hastings
Victorian Holidays and Dinner
Dec. 4-5
Tour the historic LeDuc Historic Estate, decorated in Victorian holiday style. On the 13th, a holiday dinner is offered (and a bargain at $45, all-inclusive, for a dinner that includes wild mushroom beef medallions and Minnesota wild rice cakes with apple cider cranberry chutney) accompanied by live music and dramatic readings. Tickets should be purchased in advance.

Taylors Falls
Christmas at the Folsom House
Dec. 5
Tour the home of the lumber baron W.H.C. Folsom in the charming Angel Hill District of Taylors Falls.

St. Paul
Hill House Holidays
Dec. 5
Costumed actors portray servants at the lavish James J. Hill House, giving living history tours.

St. Paul
Relax Into the Holidays
Dec. 5
Think your life is stressful? Find out what caused stress for the James J. Hill family and how they coped. Following the tour, take a class on modern-day relaxation techniques from life coach Beth Freschi.

Thankful

To live in, and have the privilege of traveling around, such a beautiful state.

The view of Grand Portage National Monument from the top of the Mount Rose trail.

Driving somewhere for Thanksgiving?

Drive carefully--and don't forget to print out this handy-dandy Roadkill Bingo Card, which will help to pass the time.

The church project

I'm starting a new, occasional series looking at the churches of Minnesota. It's a very biased look--I'm not enamored of most contemporary church architecture today. While driving through so many small towns this summer, I found myself nostalgic for an older style of church building and ended up taking lots of pictures of churches that struck my fancy. So here you have it: part one.

St. James' Little White Church, now functioning as a meeting place for the Historical Society.

Friday food

This one requires a little backstory, but stay with me, because on this gray November day (which is fine by me, but I've seen lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth over on the Twitters about the weather), you might enjoy the sunny scenery to come.

Exploring the very northernmost part of the state this summer was a true endurance test for me. My parents live north of Bemidji, and I could use their house as a base--yay! No hotel bills! But that meant a great deal of backtracking, which added on to my already long days. In just four days, I drove 1800 miles.

The worst day started with a drive to Roseau, pushing east as the day went on. When I arrived in Baudette, I saw the ominous orange detour signs. This is never a good thing. I snarled and started following it. Soon it became clear that this was no itty-bitty detour, but one of those horrible, way-out-of-my-way detours. I had county road maps with me and pulled over, seeking an alternate route. But no--there were no alternatives, unless I wanted to take my chances riding roughshod through untouched forests, something I didn't think my VW Beetle would take kindly to.

So I was running off schedule and darned cranky when I finally drove into International Falls. I was also hungry. I wandered around downtown and wasn't inspired, so I stopped by the Chamber of Commerce to ask about places to eat. The jolly woman there informed me it was a shame I'd arrived too late for the day's big event, a U.S.-Canada tug of war across the water, and there'd been a big barbecue. If only I'd been there an hour or so earlier.

Not only did I get stuck with an annoying detour, but I missed a U.S.-Canada tug of war? Oh, I was seriously cranky. That day was nearly irredeemable.

Fortunately, the jolly woman took a closer look at me, then wagged her finger and said: "You know what, you look like you could use a drink and a view."

Truer words were never spoken.

She told me to get back on the road heading east out of town and named two resorts that had restaurants that could deliver on all counts. I drove by the first one, which looked just fine, but decided to see what the other one looked like.

Sha Sha Resort on Rainy Lake is literally at road's end. It's a lovely little cabin resort, with three sides facing water (the fourth side, of course, is the only road out). What's more, they have a huge restaurant and bar, and the lovely deck above.

Can't beat a tropical bar on the edge of the Canadian border.

The view from the deck was perfect.

It's the kind of place where people boat in for dinner and/or drinks (including a few who, I think, had maybe already had a few too many of the latter). The deck is spacious, the afternoon was sunny and breezy, the waves were lapping at the shore.

I ordered the walleye salad and a beer.

The walleye was perfect, lightly breaded and fried, nicely seasoned, fresh and flavorful. The salad dressing was pretty much standard Kraft out of a bottle; if I had one complaint, I'd have to say, c'mon, if you can cook walleye this well, surely you can stir up a homemade vinaigrette too.

Doesn't matter, though. This place and this walleye were the restorative I so badly needed. I was sorry to have to say "No, thanks," when the server asked if I'd like another beer. What I really wanted was that beer and a room for the night.

But walleye salad and a stint in the sun were a pretty good second.

Even if I did miss the U.S.-Canada tug of war.

 

Friday food

Recently I talked about a bar and grill in the small town where I grew up. Just a few miles away is another little town called Turtle River, and in Turtle River there is this:

Turtle River Pasties. While visiting my parents, we bought some of these and baked them up and ate them. With great gusto.

It's a cute little shop.

Complete with little gifts and, in the back, under the mirror, on the left--yarn. I have found yarn in the darnedest places this year.

I didn't buy yarn, though. I was there for food.

You may or may not be able to see at the bottom of the board, where it says "100% Butter Crust." I had a good feeling about that.

There are several choices: original, which is like a classic pasty, filled with smoked brisket, carrots, onion, potatoes, rutabaga, and gravy; ham and cheese; Italian, with sweet Italian sausage, 5 kinds of cheese, and marinara sauce; Southwestern, with smoked brisket, black and refried beans, cheese and salsa; BBQ chicken; and spinach.

The pasties are homemade, on-site, using meats they've prepared in their own smokehouse. You can buy them to eat in, or you can get them to go, either piping hot or frozen solid. I brought home a bunch for the freezer. I can tell you right now that the original is hearty and flavorful, and the spinach was soooo good--I believe there was some garlic and roasted red peppers in with the spinach, and possibly some feta cheese.

For now, I'll show you the one I just had this week.

Mmmm...that butter crust is flaky and browns beautifully, and it's plump with filling.

Reuben filling: their own slow-baked corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and housemade Russian dressing. There's a bit of caraway in the crust for this one.

Traditional? No. Did I have a problem with that? Nope. Not for one bite of the tender corned beef, delicate pastry, melty cheese, crispy kraut, and tangy dressing.

The only problem I have is I'm running out. Guess I'll have to go visit my parents again.

Minnesota's Hidden Alphabet

When I first opened up this book, kindly sent to me by the fine folks at the Minnesota Historical Society Press, I thought, oh, this is cute. Who do I know with young kids that I could give it to when I'm done?

Sad news for people with young kids--I'm keepin' it. It's just too adorable and too delightful to gift. Except maybe if I have grandkids someday. And even then, that's an if.

This fun and charming book--yes, I'm heaping adjectives here, it's deserved--finds evidence of the alphabet all over the state. The photo credits at the end list, among others, locations as far-flung as Little Johnson Lake near the Canadian border to Blue Mounds State Park in the southwest corner of the state.

How the alphabet is represented is half the fun. There's a whimsical approach to language used here. Instead of being completely literal ("G is for Green"), G stands for "Gracing gritty lakeside shores," and it's a snail found on Rabideau Lake.

Or, brought to you by the letter P, a fiddlehead fern:

P because they're "Peeking, sneaking all around."

An utterly delightful book. Sorry I'm not giving mine away. Go buy your own copy. You need one. Trust me, you do.

November festivals

What this month’s list doesn’t reflect is the vast number of tree lighting, welcome to winter, get ready for the holidays festivals and craft fairs. Check your local community chamber for local information. Don’t forget to check the Minnesota Historical Society’s event page; they’ve always got something interesting going on.

Minneapolis
Art Attack
Nov. 5-7
A warehouse full of art and artists, all in time for the holidays.

Rochester
Mayowood Mansion Christmas Tours
Tues., Wed., Fri.-Sun., Nov. 5-28
Advance registration required. Visit the home of the Mayo Clinic founder and see it decorated for the holidays, with guided tours to explain the historical significance of the home.

Two Harbors
Annual Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Beacon Lighting
Nov. 10
The anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is commemorated with special tours that allow visitors to see the lighthouse beacon lit from inside the lighthouse, the only time each year that this privilege is available. Bring warm clothes.

Madison
Norsefest
Nov. 11-13
Ludefisk eating contests. You don’t want to eat? Go to watch. Also—other kinds of food. And art shows, and a talent show, and Norsky bingo.

Lutsen
Annual Masters’ Bluegrass Weekend
Nov. 13-15
The 20th annual celebration of bluegrass in a beautiful locale.

Grand Marais
Winterer’s Gathering & Arctic Film Festival
Nov. 18-21
The North House Folk School outdoes itself with this festival, including all manner of winter skill courses (building a wood stove, snowshoe construction, build a traditional toboggan), ski and gear swap, winter camping, and movies from countries such as Iceland, Mongolia, and Canada.

Minneapolis
MCAD Annual Art Sale
Nov. 18-20
This is your chance to find that “artist on the verge.” MCAD students create and sell artworks. Go early.

Minneapolis
Harvest Jamboree
Nov. 19-21
The Minnesota Bluegrass Old-Time Music Association began this festival just three years ago, combining old-time bluegrass with live concerts, workshops, contests, and a banquet.

Blue Earth
The Scarfing of the Jolly Green Giant
Nov. 20
Be there by 11 a.m., or you’ll miss the spectacle of Santa being lifted by machine to wrap a warm scarf around the Giant’s neck.

Aitkin
Fish House Parade
Nov. 26
Wild and crazy ice fishers decorate their  fish houses and take them on parade prior to settling them on the frozen lake for the season.

St. Paul
Hmong New Year
Nov. 26-28
This is the 34th year this event has taken place in St. Paul. Visit to learn more about the Twin Cities’ Hmong community, and enjoy live music, dancing, a beauty contest, and food.

Minneapolis
Holidazzle
Thurs-Sun, Nov. 26-Dec. 19
Truly a parade of lights, with life-size fairy tale characters decked out in splendid lit-up costumes. Allow extra time for traffic and parking, and if you’re planning on dining before or after, make reservations ahead or be prepared to wait.