MINNESOTANS have long suspected that the last ice age never fully receded from the state, but that has not kept them from having a good time. Icy Pleasures explores the many ways that the people of Minnesota have embraced its Siberian reputation with winter carnivals and cold weather sports. It crackles with the wry descriptions, larger-than-life stories, and droll humor that intrepid newsmen and propagandists have always found in a subject that so thoroughly mixes hardship with hilarity.

“Icy Pleasures is a delightful book, nicely written, profusely illustrated, and long overdue in a state where winter always hogs the stage in the theater of seasons.”— St. Paul Pioneer Press