The thermometer hovered around zero as a family of four, toting folding chairs, parked the seats in front of a big screen in a park in downtown Minneapolis to watch the Minnesota Vikings blank the Green Bay Packers in December.
It was their snowmobile suits alone that indicated their sanity.
Snowmobile suits, Elmer Fudd hats, boxing glove-sized mittens and Sorel boots: Visiting Minnesota in winter is a checked-bag trip. It’s also, increasingly, the season that distinguishes Minneapolis, a city where frostbite is not a deterrent to a tailgate and a growing number of festivals celebrate the chill.
“It’s a long season, and it’s cold, and it’s up to us how we respond. You can hide and complain for months or get out and explore,” said Eric Dayton, local restaurateur, shop owner and son of Gov. Mark Dayton. He’s also founder of the Great Northern, Jan. 25 to Feb. 4, a 10-day outdoor festival that celebrates winter in the Twin Cities and incorporates some longstanding Minnesota traditions, including the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships and the City of Lakes Loppet Ski Festival, featuring cross-country ski races and less-competitive family fun.
This year, the Great Northern festivities dovetail with Super Bowl LII, to be held Feb. 4 in the U.S. Bank Stadium, a glass behemoth that opened in 2016. The Super Bowl host committee has justly adopted the theme “Bold North,” with events such as a fashion show of cold-weather wear.
Frigid climes mandate warm refuge, and Minneapolis most discernibly harbors a hygge heart. Hygge culture, for the unacquainted, comes from the Danish word “hygge” (pronounced HOO-gah) for cozy, especially as an antidote to long, dark Scandinavian winters, not unlike Minnesota’s.
In this winter’s early freeze, I took the measure of the city’s warmth and found it abundant in both figurative and literal forms, from a shop funding environmental charities through the sale of knit hats to a hotel where the rooftop attractions include a 20-person sauna.
Stay in
That hotel, the year-old, North-Woodsman-themed Hewing Hotel, makes a great base from which to explore the hygge qualities of Minneapolis and, of course, its twin St. Paul, if only to watch a bonspiel at the friendly St. Paul Curling Club and visit the 70-foot-tall Ice Palace at the St. Paul Winter Carnival, Jan. 25 to Feb. 10. Dating to 1886, the carnival features more than four dozen events, including a snowplow competition, a boot hockey tournament and night parades.
Formerly storing farm machinery, the Hewing anchors the North Loop district, where historic warehouses have been newly colonized by hipster restaurants, bars and shops. Its popular lobby restaurant, Tullibee, serves Midwestern-sourced dishes and bakes bread in mini Bundt pans, the culinary symbol of welcome dating to the 1950s, when the pans were developed by the local Nordic Ware company. The bar insulates warm drinks with cup holders made from regional Faribault wool blankets (selling for $10 next door at the stylish men’s shop MartinPatrick3).
Get out
By day, snow or no, the nearby Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center draws Gore-Tex-clad culture seekers by muffled scores, and skaters make turns at Loring Park, where WinterSkate offers free loaner blades through early March.
In time for the NFL spotlight, Art Shanties — specially decorated ice fishing houses — will pop up on the city’s Lake Harriet, offering opportunities to snowshoe, ski or slide your way around the ice village, weekends Jan. 20 to Feb. 11.
Warm up
Walks in the cold aren’t just good ways to see art or Instagram the ice-riddled Mississippi River. They’re essential calorie-deficit investments before sampling the city’s rich culinary scene.
After experiencing a week’s worth of mind-blowing meals, two restaurants stood out. The Bachelor Farmer, a North Loop farm-to-table specialist, highlights Minnesota-grown and -raised ingredients in dishes like sprouted grains with pheasant confit. Extra hygge hugs for its Scandinavian-quoting heart-print wallpaper and the guest book that accompanies the check, inviting fans to gush.
In south Minneapolis, don’t miss Grand Cafe, where the warmest of neighborhood storefronts with mismatched china and glowing votive candles backdrops chef Jamie Malone’s highly inventive French food. Check out the foie gras that comes stuffed in an eggshell perched on a ceramic pedestal shaped like a duck foot.
The microbrewery boom drew my family repeatedly to northeast Minneapolis — affectionately known as “Nordeast” in the Nordic Minnesota accent — where we fell in love with the pretension-free brews at Bauhaus Brew Labs over games of dominoes and Cards Against Humanity.
Minneapolis’ independent retail scene offers multiple ways to model the hygge lifestyle.
The North Loop men’s shop Askov Finlayson sells stocking hats, among other gear, that say “North” and help fund an anti-global-warming campaign.
Curl up with a read from Magers & Quinn Booksellers in the Uptown neighborhood with stacks to get lost in.
Hygge your home with pine-scented candles and wool blankets at the well-stocked Scandinavian shop at the American Swedish Institute.
As hygge is predicated on warmth and welcome, the city’s Guthrie Theater deserves a special salute, not just for its excellent productions but for its Jean Nouvel-designed building that’s open in and out of performance hours. Its Endless Bridge, a cantilevered appendage jutting toward the Mississippi, terminates in an outdoor terrace overlooking the river-spanning Stone Arch Bridge, and it’s open — you betcha — in winter.
Elaine Glusac is a freelance writer.
