We’re celebrating our twentieth anniversary season of weird and wonderful winters in 2024!
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We’re excited to be back on the ice this winter in South Minneapolis! We look forward to welcoming grown adults and kids of all ages to play / learn / grow / laugh / smile / sing / groove / gather with us in the Art Shanty village.
ASL Interpretation and Audio Description will be available on all festival dates from 11am-2pm. Head to the Welcome Shanty to get connected with your guide.
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CLASSIC SHANTIES ARE BACK!
Artists had great success with the exterior-only festival in 2022 and 2023, adapting with whimsical creativity and expanding the notion of what a shanty project can be! This year we have invited artists to continue that trend OR go back to classic shanties with interior experiences. We’ve got a mix – so if you’ve been waiting to cozy up inside with us, this is your year! And if you’re still not comfortable with that, we got you!
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SUPPORT ARTISTS + ARTMAKING!
It takes a village to build a village, and there are many ways to actively participate! We’ll soon be seeking volunteers for the on-ice program – sign up for our newsletter to get announcements. You can also contribute as a member with an annual donation of just $25 or if you’re a local business, offer a cash or in-kind donation!
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Friends! We don’t have to tell you that we are experiencing the warmest winter on record this year, and that other events are canceling, adapting or postponing. Luckily Art Shanty Projects is extraordinarily nimble and flexible — embracing challenges with creativity is at the heart of our mission!
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Staff members have been working behind the scenes to prepare for many potential scenarios for our program this year.
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We’re glued to our weather apps (yay subzero temps next week!) and making visits to the lake regularly to observe changing conditions. The lake is re-freezing, and near the Bandshell we have 4” of fresh, clear ice (though the south end of the lake is open water again, ugh). We need a fully frozen lake with 10” of good ice at the site of our village to do the public program.
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It’s unlikely that it will be cold enough, fast enough, to be on the ice in time for our scheduled January 20th opening.
We are considering several options for our program, including opening on schedule with Plan Beach or postponing one week to be On-Ice if it seems reasonable for ice to build in time (we also have to be pretty confident that it won’t just melt again!)
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Follow the here about adaptations, timing, and staff considerations! As you wait (like us) for more information to unfold, click around to read about artist projects and start dreaming about your Art Shanty adventure — it will happen!
We’re excited to be back on the ice this winter in South Minneapolis! We look forward to welcoming grown adults and kids of all ages to play / learn / grow / laugh / smile / sing / groove / gather with us in the Art Shanty village.
We’re pleased to reveal the Shanties and the Performances + Art Actions for this season! While we don’t prescribe a theme, this year we’re seeing artists gravitate towards sonic experiences, collective introspection, experiments in sustainability, and movement(s) of both bodies and social agendas. Read all about the projects and check out the performance schedule! More details to come in January, including a village map, amenities, food truck schedule, and more!
Artists had great success with the exterior-only festival in 2022, adapting with whimsical creativity and expanding the notion of what a shanty project can be! (and we did not spread the omicron variant amongst artists or staff members during the surge). With the trajectory of the pandemic still taking twists and turns, and in the spirit of abundant love and caution for our community, we are once again offering an EXTERIOR-ONLY program in 2023 for visitors. Artists have continued to wow us with innovative inside-out designs, and they – along with staff and board members – feel supported in keeping the adaptations this year. This is temporary (we won’t do this forever), and is also the most stable choice for our organization at this time.
It takes a village to build a village, and there are many ways to actively participate! We’ll soon be seeking volunteers for the on-ice program – sign up for our newsletter to get announcements. You can also contribute as a member with an annual donation of just $24 or if you’re a local business, offer a cash or in-kind donation!
Note: Due to rapidly deteriorating ice on Bdé Umáŋ / Lake Harriet, Art Shanty Projects’ annual program will be presented as “Plan Beach” this year instead of ‘On-Ice.” The festival will take place on land along the lakefront, in Bandshell Park, and in the picnic grounds.
We are operating in an urban winter environment where parking is limited. We encourage carpools, biking, walking, skiing, skating and using public transit to get to our event!
Before sunrise, a group of winter water bathers known locally as the submergents, went for a dip in Lake Harriet Wednesday in Minneapolis. Here, Nicole sampled a birthday cupcake brought by a fellow bather for her 42nd birthday Wednesday and passed around on a floating device. Many participants extoll the health benefits they say come from bathing in the frigid waters, as well as the camaraderie and mental well-being that can come from meeting and sharing the experience with other winter bathers. Participants wear masks and socially distance in the icy waters. Most of those participating asked not to have their names used out of fear that it could lead to police contact.
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Star Tribune: A shirtless Steve Jewell went for a dip Wednesday morning in frigid Lake Harriet, something he has been doing almost daily since the onset of winter. And scores of other people have been joining him in getting their day off to a chilly start.
As many as 40 people who call themselves “submergents” regularly show up at the south Minneapolis lake just before 8 a.m. for a brief polar plunge off North Beach. The frosty dunks have been occurring since November.
“It’s fun and it breaks up winter,” said Jewell, 63, who took his 63rd plunge of the winter season Wednesday. “I have not had a cold since I’ve been doing this. I come out sharp. It perks me up.”
The Weather Channel took notice and featured the group in a December special. Minneapolis Park Police have noticed, too, and have discouraged the practice. At times, officers have threatened to issue citations to plungers, Jewell said.
But no officers were on hand Wednesday when the daily swim commenced at 8 a.m. sharp. The police would have soured the festive mood: one of the plungers was marking a birthday, and the all-ages group celebrated with cupcakes floating in the water.
“This crowd is social,” Jewell said. “I meet a lot of people I would not have met otherwise.”
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Most learned about the daily plunges from friends, who then invited others. Others saw them on social media by following #lakeharrietplungers and #submergents.
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Both men and women come to the “Harriet Magic Hole” at all hours of the day, some in the morning, others at noon or just before sunset to catch “the beautiful scenery,” Jewell said.
Because of COVID-19, plungers wear masks and social distance, he said, and extra care is taken to ensure safety. The group erected a fence around the 11-by-11-foot hole, where posts were drilled into the ice and dug into the sand 3 feet below the lake’s surface. A plastic mesh fence surrounds the ice hole, which offers a ladder leading to the water to keep plungers from accidentally stumbling into it.
Even with those precautions, cutting holes more than 10 inches in diameter in lakes in the Minneapolis park system violates Park Board ordinance and requires a permit, said spokeswoman Dawn Sommers. The board grants only one permit per year for such activity, for the Special Olympics to conduct a Polar Plunge on Bde Maka Ska.
“The person or entity altering the natural feature creates a liability, and therefore must assume the liability if someone were to become injured because of the alteration,” she said.
Sommers also added that fencing must be secure enough to keep people out of the hole when it is not being used, or guarded with 24-hour security. Park staff “has been trying to educate people on our ordinances, our permit processes, and the inherent dangers to ice bath users, as well as park visitors using the lakes for other activities,” Sommers said.
Jewell said there are many benefits to a quick dip in the lake. Extremes, he said, help the immune system fight off infections.
There was no immediate word on whether the Park Police might stop the popular dives. But Jewell said this weekend’s forecast bout of prolonged subzero temperatures certainly won’t.
“It will be a real challenge,” he said. “We have not had to deal with that yet.”
KING THE NEWS: The Lake Harriet “Submergents” meet at 7:55 a.m. every morning to sit in the cold lake for three minutes. They say they believe it has various health benefits.
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MINNEAPOLIS — Gone are the days of outdoor concerts at the Lake Harriet Bandshell and ice cream by the lake is now just ice. However, in Minnesota, winter and swimming aren’t mutually exclusive.
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“It’s just so cold,” Jan Rolfe said. “Then it just goes away about a minute later and we just sit in for about three minutes.”
They say you can take a Minnesotan out of the land of 10,000 lakes, but you can’t take the lake life out of a Minnesotan. Here, whether it’s the mid 30s or the mid 80s, someone’s bound to be in the water. “We’re gonna go in Lake Harriet for three minutes and just go like shoulder deep,” Harriet White said. “There’s a lot of health benefits for it.”
In fact, every morning, a group that calls themselves “submergents,” have a chill start to their day. Some in the group claim that sitting in the cold water increases their metabolism. Some say it decreases inflammation. Others also claim their mind feels clearer after a dunk.
“When I first did it it hurt so bad, I didn’t think I could go all the way in and actually after about a minute you don’t feel the pain anymore,” Rolfe said with a laugh.
“The initial 20 seconds is like really hard, but you just need to control your breathing and then it gets easier,” Harriet’s sister Sylvia White said.
Last Friday, Steve Jewell led the group into the water.
“So we’re going to walk in, walk up to our waist, drop down to our knees,” he explained to the group. “Cross your hands if you’d like. I have a timer on and we’re going to pop up at three minutes.”
Sitting there, stuck in your own thoughts and fighting time may be the hardest part of it all. Many took to closing their eyes, or just staring off into space, focused on mindfulness.
“I feel terrific, once you’re in, and you do deep breathing, you stop hyperventilating,” Jewell said. “What really happens, is your body temp takes over and it warms the water around you, so I’m not cold right now.”
And just like that, it was quite a sight. Just a handful of bobbleheads on a yet to be frozen lake. For many time is passing as normal. For others, like molasses.
When the three minutes are up, Jewell called out for others to ‘dunk your doughnut,’ meaning, dunk your head underwater if they wanted to. “The first 30 seconds were definitely the hardest,” a woman said as she is on her way out. “When he called out 30 seconds I thought he meant, 30 seconds left, but afterwards, singing for me really helps.”
So why in Lake Harriet’s name…would people do this– let alone, return each morning?
Again, for some it’s a mind thing.
“when you get out it’s just so clear in your mind,” Rolfe said.
“There’s a sense of empowerment where you can face something like the cold and overcome your mind– with your body,” Alex Freese said. “So it’s just a daily practice.”
“It’s not just crazies running in the lake, well people do that too but if you notice, there are people who swim out here–there’s some value to cold temp swimming,” Jewell said. “The water is always going to be warmer than ice, so at least 35 degrees, the duration is up to you, we don’t stay longer than three minutes.
And the most Minnesotan answer of them all–it’s just something to do, that keeps you outside even during the winter season.
Midwesterners– we love our outdoor activity and to me this is another way of extending that outdoor activity,” Jewell said.
The Lake Harriet ‘submergents’ meet each morning at 7:55 at Lake Harriet.
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