A closer look at flyover land

History and Art

Recently I visited the town of Waconia, west of the Cities, and couldn't resist the pull of the Carver County Historical Museum. I'm a sucker for these county museums; you never know what you might find. Some are wonderfully curated and artfully presented, others are more like flea markets. CCHS, I'm happy to say, falls in the former category. It's not a large museum, but it has a number of interesting exhibits, one focused on generations of veterans (fitting, since it's in the same building as the Carver County VA), another on tools, another on the growing immigrant population in the county:

There's even a small but interesting exhibit about the difficulties faced by what were previously small towns in rural areas, but are now increasingly growing and becoming more suburban-like, which can generate some contentious feelings. Surprisingly, according to the exhibit, it's the newcomers who complain most about the growth.

Growth issues aside, I like to look at the stuff. Look at this hand-carved secretary! How gorgeous is that? And how much time must it have taken?

This, my friends, is a hair wreath. Yes--made of human hair. Apparently that was a craft that was all the rage back in the day. 

The CCHS also has visiting exhibitions, and the one on display when I was there (I think it's there until early February) was--be still, my craft-loving heart--a display of Russian artworks and handmade lace.

The exhibit was called "Beauty Will Save the World: From the Russian North to the North Star." It includes this painting by Sergeiy Telenkov, titled The Young Lace Maker.

Fittingly, it's surrounded by plenty of lace, including this lovely and intricate piece:

There are other Russian art forms, too, including hand-painted matroshka dolls and the beautiful little boxes.

I'm a sucker for those little boxes, like the one in the center. Years ago, DH and I visited Russia (it was still the USSR then) and bought some and had dreams of collecting many more. They're tiny marvels of detail.

As are the birch bark carvings.

It makes me sort of stupidly happy to wander into a place like the CCHS, not sure what I'll find, and see such a well-done collection, obviously carefully curated and cared for. History is alive and well, and in my mind, that's a good thing.

Of national importance

A much-beloved state landmark is now recognized as a National Historic Landmark:

Split Rock Lighthouse, part of Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, was awarded the historic designation last week. It's only the 12th lighthouse across the U.S. to be so designated, and only the second on the shores of a Great Lake. Split Rock was nominated both because of its history in terms of the importance of shipping in the earlier 20th century, and because of its pristine condition (it opened in 1910, having been built after horrendous storms in 1905 damaged and/or destroyed 30 ships).

Besides visiting the Lighthouse itself, you can also walk down the Tramway to the beach, and see why this particular piece of shoreline was so treacherous without light.

The Lighthouse is open mid-May through mid-October, and then again each year on the anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy, in November, when the beacon is lit in remembrance.

I am so going to see that someday.

It's a beautiful place to visit, and well worth the extra time to clamber down to the beach and do a little hiking. Also? Great gift shop. Not, of course, that that plays into the national significance.

The Opposite of Cold

 

ETA: a complete list of author events for this book can be found here.

For part 2 of Book Week, I bring you this: The Opposite of Cold by Michael Nordskog, with photographs by Aaron W. Hautala.

This is a coffee table book in terms of size and lushness of photography, but it's also surprisingly filled with lively text that does more than just act as captions for the photos. Saunas were introduced to the Midwest by immigrant Finns. Yes, along, with Swedes and Norskes, Minnesota also has a sizable Finnish heritage, especially around the Iron Range and in towns like Embarrass and Finland (the latter of which also has an annual festival celebrating St. Urho, a mythical saint conjured up to compete with Ireland's St. Patrick).

Today there are many historical saunas dotting the countryside of Finnish-rooted communities in Minnesota, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin. Some are preserved and available for visitors, such as those included in the Sisu Heritage Tours around Embarrass.

The Opposite of Cold looks at the roots of the sauna, both originally in Finland and how it translated to the U.S. The accompanying photography is gorgeous, and illustrates the creativity of sauna builders over the years, from a sauna perched on the edge of a dock to wooden and stone saunas to barrel-shaped saunas to portable saunas built on skids. Since so many of these saunas are hidden away in the woods or near lakes, the photographer had some excellent natural beauty to work with.

So, whether you're looking for a beautiful coffee table book, or an interesting, well-researched study of this part of Minnesota history, check out The Opposite of Cold.

Note: the author and photographer are giving a talk and slide show this Thursday, Sept. 30, at the American Swedish Institute. A reception begins at 6, with the talk starting at 7. I suspect it'll be well worth a stop. More details here.

My thanks to the University of Minnesota Press for sending me a review copy of this lovely book.

A sunny day in Minneapolis

Remember last week, when we had that gloriously warm and sunny day, before the cold and wind and rain and sleet and even--gasp--snow returned? I spent that day exploring various places in the Twin Cities, armed with my trusty camera.

FYI, at the moment I'm wrapping up work on an iPhone app called Twin Cities Essentials. I put out a query via Twitter and Facebook, asking people what they thought should be included in an app like that. The overwhelming winner was this place:

Minnehaha Park and Falls. 

That's an understandable response. A nearly 200-acre natural oasis in Minneapolis, Minnehaha has it all: trails, off-leash dog park, huge picnic areas (some of which are reservable):

Live music during the summer, historic sites, numerous picturesque stops, and, of course, the waterfall.

You can explore the Park by foot, as I did, or you can rent some wheels.

Wheel Fun Rentals provides a notable variety of wheel options. They're open daily Memorial Day-Labor Day; Sat-Sun in May, Sept (after Labor Day) and Oct.

You won't necessarily want to take a bike here.

Nor will you want to take these stairs, especially up, right after eating a hefty lunch. I'm not going to go into details on why I know that. Perhaps by Friday I'll tell you.

But after you've seen the falls, you can wander off to find the popular event site of the park:

This long pergola makes a beautiful backdrop, along with the flowers planted all around, for weddings.

The park has some history as well.

The John H. Stevens House was built in 1849 and was the first wood frame home west of the Mississippi. It's the gathering spot where community leaders came up with the city's name, and where the governmental structure for Hennepin County was created. Guided tours are offered on Sundays and holidays during the summer.

The Longfellow House, built in 1906 as a 2/3 replica of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's home in MA. Currently it's used by the Minneapolis Park Board as an interpretive and information center.

Given that the forecast for today looks a bit gloomy, I hope you enjoyed this mini-tour of Minnehaha Park, and I hope that the weather improves quickly so y'all can go there and enjoy it yourself. So--besides Minnehaha, what should be on my Twin Cities Essentials iPhone app?

OK, seriously?

This is such an excellent deal, and you can get it all weekend: a 53% discount on a family membership to the Minnesota Historical Society. An utterly spectacular deal. And no, neither Groupon nor the MNHS is paying me to say that. I heart the MNHS. And Groupon.

A Victorian Homecoming

You know I'm nuts about the Minnesota Historical Society, simply because they do such an amazing job of making history interesting and accessible. When I had the opportunity to take the Victorian Homecoming tour at the Alexander Ramsey House (courtesy of the MNHS), I couldn't refuse.

Look at that place! Gorgeous! I've walked by it many times, and always wondered what it was like on the inside.

Oh--and if, unlike me, you're smart and plan ahead, you could take the tour on a Sunday afternoon, preceding it with brunch in the mansion across the street.

Forepaugh's. 

As I did not plan that well, you'll have to make do with me telling you about the tour.

Alexander Ramsey was both appointed governor of the territory and then elected governor of the state, back in the mid-1800s. Politics itself didn't earn him enough to build his lovely Victorian mansion; he was also heavily, and intelligently, involved in real estate. The home was, for its time, cutting edge; it had hot and cold running water, hot water radiators, and gas lighting. It was also well furnished--Mrs. Ramsey went on a major shopping spree in NYC, filling two train cars with furniture. Apparently there's no record of Mr. Ramsey's response to that.

If you were to visit the Ramseys, you'd likely have stopped in the receiving room.

Mrs. Ramsey wrote a letter one year, complaining that the annual New Year's tradition of visiting people had apparently been in decline, for she'd only received 100 visitors that year. How could you handle 100 visitors? They kept it short, for many reasons; lots of people to visit; very little that was considered proper to talk about (by the time you ruled out politics, religion, and anything that would smack of bragging about yourself, you'd pretty much be left with the weather); and the etiquette of the time, which dictated that visitors were not supposed to ask to use the bathroom. Yup, you'd want to keep it short.

FYI--one of the many cool things about the Ramsey House is that the family lived in it continually until it was given to the Historical Society after the death of the last surviving member, and having planned for that, the family also donated most of the furnishings. So instead of "these are typical of the period" pieces, the house is full of "these really belonged to the Ramseys" pieces. So fun that way.

Remind me, if I ever get rich and famous, to leave my home and its furniture to the Historical Society.

(Also: the following photos are all courtesy of the MNHS.)

This is the entryway as it was when the Ramseys lived there. Quiet a welcoming place. If you were really special, or there for a party or dance versus a short social visit, you'd get to enter the parlor.

If you look to the back of the room, you'll see some chairs that are low to the ground and armless. These were to accommodate ladies with big bustles and very tight corsets.

The parlor is where you'd find the tree as well. This is decorated with the Ramseys' own ornaments. Typically a tree was not displayed for long, and always had a bucket and mop nearby, in case the candles set it on fire.

The dining room is smaller than you'd expect; for the Victorian Homecoming, the table is extended, and set for a lavish dinner. It's worth visiting just to see the number and variety of glassware set out for drinks. These Victorian types apparently liked to celebrate with a considerable amount of alcohol.

I know it's not really relevant to a discussion of the tour, but here's a photo of Ramsey's granddaughter Laura, who lived in the house until her death, and her cats. Isn't she sweet?

The bedrooms were more than comfortable.

However, this is my favorite of all, because it introduced me to a concept I'd never heard of: the snuggerie. A snuggerie, as it sounds, is a snug place or a cozy room. This area was between two bedrooms. Initially it was going to be walled off to serve as a dressing area between the two bedrooms, but Mrs. Ramsey loved the sunlight, and so designated it as a snuggerie for hobbies, needlework, etc.

I want a snuggerie.

The kitchen still has a wood-burning fireplace, and the Victorian Homecoming Tour includes your choice of fresh-baked cookie. Besides this Tour, the Ramsey House offers a variety of fun holiday events, including horse-drawn carriage rides this Saturday and a candlelight New Year's Eve tour. The guides, as always, are lively and informative, full of fun stories--I've only shared a few with you here. You'll have to take your own tour to get them all.

New life for the Music Box Theatre

From Twin Cities Daily Planet.

Below the Music Box Theatre near the northern terminus of Nicollet Avenue lies one of the oddest historical sites in Minnesota (and yes, I've been to Ed's Museum). After several decades as a movie theater, the 1920 building served as a Pentecostal church presided over by the to-be-notorious Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. The basement was the gathering place for their youth group, the Navigators Club, and its walls still bear dusty hand-painted murals of the Holy Land, complete with a once-functioning wall-mounted fountain. It must have been a magical land for those little Navigators.

The basement also contains two-foot marquee letters reading loring, from another of the building's previous lives. Most recently, the Triple Espresso performers parked there for over ten years; the theater is now reopening as a venue for music, theater, and other entertainments.

Already the place is a mecca for the Twin Cities' most ardent music lovers. At Monday night's press event, the Art Deco lobby was like a young music journalists' Nighthawks at the Diner: Culture Bully's Chris DeLine behind the bar, City Pages music editor Andrea Swensson leaning against it, Vita.mn's Leslie Plesser coming in from the rain, Carl Atiya Swanson conducting tours and his CakeIn15 blogmate, photographer Stacy Schwartz, in the house enjoying a performance by Nikki Schultz. Schwartz is the venue's booker, and Swanson its art curator; already, he's wasting no wall space.

The Music Box is a superb place to hear music, particularly from the vantage point of the 214 orchestra seats, which wrap around the large stage. A spacious balcony makes room for another 226. There's no Orpheum-style gilding, but the building is in good shape inside and out, with a rough-and-ready sturdiness behind its veneer of campy glamour. (The Broadway posters left by the Espresso troupe feel a lot more ironic than they probably did a year ago.) The sound is excellent for acoustic performances, and for the unplugged crowd the venue will be a great alternative to the Cedar.

Outside, general manager Pete Christensen noticed me taking a picture of the blank marquee. "What do you want to see up there?" he asked.

"How about subscribe to the twin cities daily planet?" I replied.

"Sure," he laughed. "I think we can do that."

That would be great, Pete—but really, it will make me quite happy enough to see bands' names up there, and even happier to go inside to hear them play.

Ely 2016!

I'm so sad that I just found out about the remarkable efforts made by the town of Ely to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to the gateway of the Boundary Waters.

 

Oh, stop snortling. These guys have put a huge effort into this. You know what? I wish I lived in Ely, so I could join in their efforts. They have a website, a blog, a Facebook group, they're on Twitter--and for goodness sake, please take a moment to watch the press conference on YouTube.

Go Ely!

As they mention in the press conference, there are so many things to do in that community. Obviously proximity to the Boundary Waters is a plus. But there are other sites and venues for entertainment and historical enlightenment as well, including one of my favorites.

 

The Dorothy Molter Museum. Molter was known as the "Root Beer Lady." The cabin pictured was her decades-long home on the Isle of Pines in the Boundary Waters. She was the last living resident of the BWCA, allowed to remain even after the area became a protected wilderness by the efforts of friends, who gathered petition signatures and lobbied for her to be "grandfathered" in. A wise move--in her own way, Molter was a most singular diplomat for the area, receiving thousands of visitors each year, who had the good fortune to purchase her homemade root beer (hence the nickname).

After her death in 1986, some wise Ely folks (presumably of the same ilk that are running the Ely 2016 campaign) arranged to have her cabin and its contents carefully dismantled and catalogued, then resurrected just outside Ely as a memorial. It's a wonderful glimpse into a lifestyle long gone.

 

The kitchen, with all its tools and implements.

 

The cozy bedroom.

 

And a display of Christmas decorations, of which Molter was very fond (and many of which were made by her).

If you're in the Ely area, the Molter Museum is well worth a stop, although its proximity to major roads , while convenient, makes it hard to imagine what life in the cabin was like in the wilderness.

Oh, and don't forget to buy some of the Root Beer Lady root beer. Probably not quite the same as it was in Dorothy's day, when she didn't have any pesky food regulations to adhere to, but still, darn good root beer. (Also available at some Byerly's and Lunds stores.)

History in Beltrami County

I recently wrote several columns for WCCO.com about some of Minnesota's "other" museums and special exhibits taking place this summer. Today, let's take a look at one of the museums up north:

 

The Beltrami County History Center in Bemidji. It's relatively new, as county historical museums go--it opened to the public in 2001, in a restored James J. Hill railroad depot building.

This is one of the (many) small museums in the state that impresses me. It helps that it's got fairly new facilities, but nevertheless, it has a surprisingly varied collection, well maintained and displayed, with many items on loan or donated outright by local residents. 

Look at the beautifully displayed Native American pieces:

  

And a car:

 

Then there are some quirky items:

 

Old license plates, from an odd source:

There's also a display full of old office items, including this tongue-in-cheek notice:

 

Overall, a great place to visit. I've heard that some of the local residents were unhappy when the Center opened and charged admission ($5 for adults, $4 for students/seniors, $1 for kids 12 and under). Apparently people felt that given how much the local community had donated, both in terms of display items and money, that there should be no admission fee. I understand where they're coming from, but at the same time, museums are expensive places to operate. When a site is doing a fine job preserving and displaying their artifacts, I don't know that $5 is too much to ask.

 

The Nooks 'n' Crannies Tour

I've blogged before about taking the main tour of the James J. Hill House in St. Paul (in case you've forgotten, I highly recommend it). This week I had the pleasure of taking a different kind of tour there--sort of an advanced version of the base tour: the Nooks 'n' Crannies Tour.

This is only offered on Tuesday evenings in the summer. The second tour each time is run by a costumed guide, acting in character. That's cool on its own, but what's really fun is that you get to go into place that are usually completely off limits during the normal Hill House tours.

 

(Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society)

If you, like me, have a bad case of "grass is always greener and tours are always more interesting on the other side of the locked door" attitude, this will be right up your alley. There is some crossover between the two tours, but that's OK; in fact, I'd still recommend taking the traditional tour first, so you really have a better understanding of the house, its occupants, and their times before exploring the hidden spaces.

I did take quite a few pictures, but given that flash photography is not allowed--even on the Nooks 'n' Crannies Tour--I only have a few usable ones. See? Another reason you'll just have to go on your own.

Not all of the off-limits places are indoors. This beautiful second-floor porch is not usually open to the public.

 

On the ceiling are two heavy-duty hooks, and it's speculated that they used to hold a porch swing. How lovely would that be? Here's the view:

 

The Cathedral of St. Paul across the street.

The art room houses a massive organ:

 

You can always see that on tour--but you usually don't get to see this:

 

The inner workings of the organ.

You also don't usually get to wander around the kitchen space just off the massive formal dining room.

 

That, by the way, was our guide. Behind me is a ladder leading to the upper china cabinet level. The Hills, they had a lot of china.

 

I really wish this had turned out better. The attic used to be the Hill kids' playroom, complete with stage that has dressing rooms and stage lighting. The playroom is enormous. How fun it must have been to have that space as a child.

 

The tour concludes with a visit to the little gatehouse, an odd building, and no one's quite sure of its exact purpose. It has two bedrooms upstairs, and a full bathroom and sitting room on the first floor, but no facilities at all. The staff was always given board, so someone working for the Hills wouldn't have needed a kitchen, but it's still not clear if this was used for year-round staff boarding or for a place for groomsmen to gather when they'd brought people to dinners and dances.

This is by no means all that was covered on the tour. The coal cellar, various servant's areas, and lots of mechanical intrigues are all available to explore. My understanding is that this is a very popular tour during the summer and sells out, so it would be wise to make a reservation ahead.

Because a home like this is always worth exploring.