March

2014

It hadn’t occurred to me until someone at work brought it to my attention that this winter has been going on for eleven years. I said, “That can’t be. Surely not.” But then I got thinking about it. It was eleven years ago November we moved into this house. You remember, snow was just beginning and we had so much trouble getting the refrigerator down the driveway and through the door.

Mary Dear

2014

It snowed that afternoon. Heavy, wet flakes pelted my coat on my walk down the sloping drive toward Cleveland Avenue. By the time I got to the iron gate it

Silverheels

2014

It was my mom’s first marriage proposal. At eight, she was the ­older woman. George was only six. After hasty consideration, Mom turned him down. As she explained to her mother, she couldn’t marry George. He liked carrots. She didn’t.

Cold

2014

The midnight sky is bright with the light of new snow. Rooftops have gone missing...

March

2012

it is impossible to miss the red bird the only ember alive this snowy March...

Carnival

2012

I was a young Philadelphian, freshly divorced, and looking for a new city in which to start my new life. I was tired of rat-filled alleys and dirty heaps of black snow that lined the streets like piles of coal. At a library, I happened upon a travel magazine. And on those glossy, full-color pages, I spotted a picture of the Saint Paul Winter Carnival.

Sleigh Ride

2012

Homemade snow pants of thick wool, ice caked on my jacket sleeves and on my mittens: I head out with my best friend, Rita doll...

The Dead of Winter

2012

We speak of it as though it were a place, a battlefield strewn with corpses, a burial ground of shattered statues hooded with snow.

Winter Wonderland and the Hunt for Treasure

By Brie Goellner ● 2011

The scramble begins. The quickest gets the matching gloves. Snowsuit on . . . wool socks on . . . boots on . . . I just need a hat and gloves. A lone glove lies on the wood floor in the entryway. Where’s its mate? Hats, scarves, and mismatched gloves fly out of the wicker basket. “Ah ha!” It sits at the bottom calling to its twin. I’m ready, we’re set, let’s go! We pile into the minivan, shovels in the back. The best part about searching for the Winter Carnival medallion isn’t the digging. No, at age eight I prefer to lie in the snow or sit and watch the people shoveling around us.

Welcome to Mount Como

2010

The sign mysteriously appears when the snow starts, at the foot of the golf club driveway, announcing the start of the ski season at Como Park: “Welcome to Mount Como.” When my husband tells a friend visiting from Switzerland, a snowboard instructor, that his kids took downhill ski lessons there, the Swiss fellow looks puzzled. “But there are no hills,” he says.

A Fanatic’s Guide to Getting the Most out of the Weather in Saint Paul

2010

For those of us who think about, study, discuss, photograph, worship, and otherwise adore the weather, Saint Paul is a miniature atmospheric playground.

I (Heart) Swede Hollow

2009

I had just arrived at my new house—the house I bought without ever seeing. In my life, at that moment, that decision made perfect sense. It was a time when things much more unthinkable than buying a house without ever seeing it in person made perfect sense too. An unthinkable world had been my reality for the last year: New Orleans AFTER. I was gone eight years and was just now returning to Minnesota, where I had grown up.