A construction crew for the St. Paul Winter Carnival ice palace will begin cutting blocks of ice from Green Lake on Wednesday, but first the ice surface had to be prepared for work.
The carnival’s volunteer photographer Darrin Johnson took drone photos Monday of a crew clearing snow off the harvest area near Spicer, Minn.
A team of workers from Park Construction, Park Avenue Trucking, Xcel Energy and Wee Kut will harvest ice this week, and the first blocks are expected to arrive in Rice Park by Saturday. The ice palace will require about 4,000 blocks, which will be transported to St. Paul on flatbed trucks. Construction of the seven-story palace will take about two weeks.
The ice palace will be a free attraction as part of the annual winter celebration, which will be extended an extra week (Jan. 25-Feb. 10) to coincide with Super Bowl festivities in Minneapolis.
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You can support construction of the ice palace by sponsoring a block of ice for $25 at wintercarnival.com.
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