This past Thursday morning, KAXE listeners were treated to David McDonald's long-form audio portrait of the first home Minnesota Vikings game played outdoors in exactly 29 years. Particularly impressive in his essay, I thought, was how many Northern Minnesotans McDonald was able to document, and the overall capture of the atmospherics of such a massive and historic gathering. Hear it in the AMPERS Archives.
In Minnesota history:
January 31, 1883: The Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, the founding organization of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design), is incorporated, with William W. Folwell of the University of Minnesota as its first president.
February 1, 1840: Thomas B. Walker is born in Xenia, Ohio. After making his fortune in lumber, he would plan and develop the Walker Art Gallery, which opened in 1894. He would also play an instrumental role in the creation of the Minneapolis Public Library. He died in 1928.
February 1, 1886: St. Paul's first Winter Carnival opens, hosting competitions in curling, skating, and ice polo and boasting the first ice palace in the United States. Built in Central Park, the palace is 140 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 100 feet high.
February 2, 1996: Minnesota's coldest temperature is recorded at Tower, a minimum extreme of -60 Fahrenheit that bests by one degree the 1899 record low of -59 at Leech Lake.
February 3, 1979: The Minnesota Twins trade future hall-of-famer Rod Carew to the California Angels.
February 4, 1803: The Reverend William T. Boutwell is born in Lyndeborough, New Hampshire. In 1832 he would accompany Henry Schoolcraft on the trip that confirmed Lake Itasca as the source of the Mississippi River, and he would supply the Latin words from which Schoolcraft named the lake (veritas, true, and caput, head). He would also serve as missionary to the Ojibwe in various Minnesota locations until 1847, when he moved to Stillwater, where he died on October 11, 1890.
February 5, 1924: Forty-one iron-ore miners drown or are fatally buried in mud, and seven more escape by climbing a ladder at the Milford Mine north of Crosby. A nearby lake suddenly empties into the underground operation. A county inspector, who had visited the mine the week before the accident, would later state that every precaution had been taken and that the flooding was unavoidable.
February 6, 1967: Duluth's Accordionaires, a group of twenty-four accordion players, give a triumphal concert in their hometown. Organized in 1950, the group had performed around the world, including stops in Japan and the Soviet Union.
February 6, 1996: Governor Arne Carlson closes all state schools due to extreme cold temperatures and wind chills.
February 7, 1851: The territorial legislature votes to make St. Paul the capital and to put the prison in Stillwater.
February 7, 1867: Laura Ingalls (Wilder) is born near Pepin, Wisconsin. Her family would settle in Walnut Grove, Redwood County, from 1874 to 1880 (living briefly in Iowa for the year 1876–77). She is remembered for writing the Little House on the Prairie books.
February 7, 1922: Ga-Be-Nah-Gwen-Wonce, an Ojibwe man also known as "Wrinkled Meat" and reputed to be 137 years of age, dies at Cass Lake.
Find these items and many more in The Minnesota Book of Days, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.
February 6, 1967: Duluth's Accordionaires, a group of twenty-four accordion players, give a triumphal concert in their hometown. Organized in 1950, the group had performed around the world, including stops in Japan and the Soviet Union.
February 6, 1996: Governor Arne Carlson closes all state schools due to extreme cold temperatures and wind chills.
February 7, 1851: The territorial legislature votes to make St. Paul the capital and to put the prison in Stillwater.
February 7, 1867: Laura Ingalls (Wilder) is born near Pepin, Wisconsin. Her family would settle in Walnut Grove, Redwood County, from 1874 to 1880 (living briefly in Iowa for the year 1876–77). She is remembered for writing the Little House on the Prairie books.
February 7, 1922: Ga-Be-Nah-Gwen-Wonce, an Ojibwe man also known as "Wrinkled Meat" and reputed to be 137 years of age, dies at Cass Lake.
Find these items and many more in The Minnesota Book of Days, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.
Catherine Holm reads from her new book 'My Heart is a Mountain: Tales of Magic and the Land', Monday night at 6:30, at Lyric Center for the Arts in Virginia.
Bemidji's broad and deep visual art scene is on display with new exhibits that debuted in last week's Firs Friday art walk. The Bemidji Community Art Center has the comprehensive list.
Oils, acrylics, watercolors, and encaustics from BSU faculty member Natalia Himmirska, and mixed-media creations by Marlon Davidson and Don Knudson, are at MacRostie Art Center through February. Hibbing Community College instructor Daryn Lowman presents a lecture and demonstration focused on these current exhibits at the MAC starting at 6 p.m. this Wednesday night, February 9.
Also February 9, musician Sela Oveson, who has been profiled on Centerstage Minnesota, presents a CD release party for the album 'Rogue Lightning'. That runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at Brewed Awakenings Coffeehouse in downtown Grand Rapids. Competing for the ears of downtown district live music lovers will be Sam Miltich and his jazz combo at the VFW, also from 7 to 9. Uptown, the electrified string quartet Stringfever blows minds at the Reif Center starting at 7:30.
And also on the event-heavy Wednesday, February 9, the Edge Center for the Arts in Bigfork screens the 1943 wartime rom-com 'The More The Merrier' at 6:30 p.m.
