How Minnesota Are You?

Though there are no immediate plans to create a loyalty oath or a test for residency, being a Minnesotan means more than liking walleye, Joe Mauer, and those sweaters Kevin McHale wears. (Ridiculing Iowa is no longer OK; things are that bad there.) We have a set of singular pastimes that make us who we are, and unless you’ve experienced them, well, you’re an outsider—even if you keep your hot dish recipes together with a rubber binder and elongate your o’s.

OK, how do you join this secret society? Easy. On the following pages are sixty must-do Minnesota experiences. Complete them all, and you’ll be invited to join the club. Not there yet? The path to sainthood is paved with self-doubt and modesty. —Adam Platt

Play Dylan on Highway 61
Forever memorialized by Bob Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, the road stretches from the Canadian border to New  Orleans, minus the Minnesota section between Wyoming and Duluth where I–35 consumes it. Highway 61’s southern Great  River Road, which skirts the area’s forested limestone bluffs along the Mississippi, and its northern North Shore Scenic Drive, which follows Lake Superior’s rugged coast, make Minnesota’s best two-segment road trip—listening to Dylan makes it even better.

Hit 50 at the IDS Center
What Minnesotan wasn’t a trifle abashed when the fifty-seven-story IDS Center thrust itself into the ether above the Nicollet Mall—a startling and, by local standards, ostentatious middle finger to the historic restraint of the downtown skyline? The once-tallest Twin Cities building is today the elegant and energizing landmark its New York designers, Philip Johnson and John Burgee, had in mind. Enjoy the view from the fiftieth floor, at Windows on Minnesota’s Sunday brunch. 612-376-7404

Float Your Boat on Lake Minnetonka
We may be the land of 10,000 lakes, but for those who have a boat on Minnetonka, there’s only one. A lake so prestigious it has its own website. Sure, you can experience it from the shore or from the decks of such infamous hot spots as Lord Fletcher’s, North Coast, and Maynard’s. But to truly immerse yourself in Lake culture, you need a boat. A very big boat. And a tour guide—preferably one who can fill you in on all the gossip from the estates belonging to the Pillsburys, Daytons, Burnets, Jacobses, and other Lakes elites.

Consort with Lorie
We’re a reserved lot here in Minnesota. Nothing too over the top. We’re not a big-hair or big-hat kind of state. Maybe that’s why we love Lorie Line. She puts it out there and takes us with her—but not too far—we can only handle so much. But she knows that. She’s one of us. We know her beginnings—playing the piano at Dayton’s downtown. Now twenty-seven albums (and 5 million copies) later, she and her pop chamber orchestra hit the road and play eighty-plus stages a year—including twelve in Minnesota. And the holiday show? It’s on ice, baby. Dec. 8–15, Orpheum Theatre

Get to the Mayo Clinic Before You Die
When was the last time you heard about a Minnesotan flying to the United Arab Emirates for a major medical procedure? (OK, maybe Thailand.) The nineteenth-century creation of the physician brothers Mayo remains what it’s been for most of the past century: the planet’s ultimate medical destination and the last, best hope for patients around the world. It may be a fourteen-hour flight from Dubai to Rochester, but for us, it’s only a ninety-minute drive down U.S. Highway 52.

Hit a Target and Love It
Of course you’ve been to Target. Until recently we could have steered you to the Snelling Avenue location in Roseville, store 001, but, alas, it was bulldozed for a shiny new SuperTarget. As you stuff your cart with life’s essentials, a $19.99 shirt, a supercute $24.99 handbag, and a couple of—ah, what the heck—throw pillows, just remember, all of this genius is directed by a couple of skyscrapers worth of folks downtown.

Tour the State Fair Animal Barns While Eating Anything on a Stick
Swine, fried food, award-winning baked goods, rides, shows, amazing displays of cellulite, fresh-squeezed lemonade, church breakfasts, baby animals, baby people, Weird Al Yankovic, and grounds covered with sharp sticks. (Though you may be tempted, do not use them to prod people.) Aug. 23–Sept. 3, Snelling Ave. N. at Como Ave., St. Paul, 651-288-4400

Belly Up to the Best Bar
One step through the door of Nye’s—and poof—you’re in another place. You can feel it, hear it, smell it. Before you even make it to the bar to order a long neck Grain Belt, you pass through Lou’s lair. The infamous Lou Snider holds court at the equally infamous piano bar where everyone sings along. And it ain’t the whisky talking. It’s a rite of passage. You may be a blink from the banks of the Mississip’, but there’s no doubt you’ll be singing New York, New York. Don’t let your journey stop there. There’s another door in the back of the bar, the one with the round window. Well, you already know that. Nye’s Polonaise Room, 112 Hennepin Ave. E., Mpls., 612-379-2021

Mug for the Camera under Spoonbridge and Cherry
Claes Oldenburg’s 1988 whimsy is well on its way to becoming the symbol that most says “Minneapolis.” The adjacent Walker-curated sculpture garden is a kick and a half as well. Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Vineland Place at Hennepin Ave.

Master Abstract at the Walker
Over the years, the Walker Art Center has taken a lot of flak. Bold statements—Thomas Hirschhorn’s trash-filled Cavemanman, the looming, gray addition, the gallery filled with twelve TV monitors screening Bordering on Fiction: Chantal Akerman’s D’est —have done more than raise a few eyebrows. However, it is these same avant-garde, envelope-pushing projects that have brought the visual arts world to our door and led us to new ways of seeing things. 1750 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-375-7600

Sit Behind the Plate When Johan Is Pitching to Mauer
Yes, the Dome sucks. But it’s worth braving the Teflon skies to see the most dominant battery in the American League since the Yankees’ Whitey Ford–to–Yogi Berra era. Not only will you see a Cy Young–quality game of catch, but our hometown boy (Mauer was once a star QB/catcher for the Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders) is pretty good astride the plate as well—as evidenced by last year’s batting title. 612-375-7454, minnesotatwins.com

Dry Out, Clean Up at Hazelden
Looking for a mind/ body/ spirit makeover? Skip the seaweed wrap and head to Center City for a two- or twenty-eight-day stay at Hazelden. With results like H’s, everyone should take advantage of one of the state’s best least-kept secrets. Twelve Steppers have always held that we all could benefit from a spiritual program of recovery from whatever your worst jones is. They’re right! Got a problem with booze, cocaine, pills, gambling, sex, smoking, codependency—Hazelden has a program for it. Spring clean your soul. Center City

Throw It All Away, Then Win Some More at a Casino
Ferget yer pull tabs. Love ’em or hate ’em, Minnesota’s tribal-owned casinos are now an indelible part of our state’s entertainment fabric—the primary source of action for thousands. The bigger ones are a fine substitute for Vegas if you’d rather put $300 into a couple of hours of video poker and a nice steak than a redeye flight. And these days, some of the best music and comedy acts only play the gambling houses.

Make Friends with Sid
New York had Breslin, Chicago Royko. Fifty years from now, Sid Hartman, already nearly 150 years of age, will be the only Twin Cities newspaper columnist anyone remembers. He is the voice of Minnesota sports, and his quirks just enhance the experience: the mangled syntax, the phlegmy throat, the growing prickliness and contempt. There will not be another like him. For the ultimate Sid explainer, check out the Saturday Morning SportsTalk page at am1500.com. Then tune him in Sunday mornings on WCCO Radio or The Sports Show Sundays at 11 p.m. on the CW Twin Cities. Or catch his Strib column.

Mill Around St. Anthony Falls
Minneapolis was founded on flour, and the power of the Mississippi River was once harnessed by the largest mill in the world, the venerable Pillsbury “A,” built in 1881 astride St. Anthony Falls. Times have changed—the A Mill is going condo, but the falls’ power is still being gathered—now by a hydroelectric plant. Get the flour story, from top to bottom, at the Mill City Museum and check out the Falls from the Stone Arch Bridge. Mill City Museum, 704 S. 2nd St., Mpls., 612-341-7555

Navigate the Spectacle That Is the Mall of America
Don’t gawk, gape, or saunter. You’re no tourist, you’re a local. Yes, it’s a big mall with nearly every shop America could ever love. But it’s also our biggest attraction—and  with nearly 40 million visitors a year, it’s home to the state’s best people-watching. They come here from the Dakotas to wed, from Iowa for a Gap, from Manitoba for warmth, from Japan for—well, the Japanese are just plain ol’ shopping- and Western pop culture–obsessed. Bloomington, 952-883-8800

Drink in the Power Scenes at The Lex and Bellanotte
Clout in St. Paul is traditional. Pols, lawyers, lobbyists, old money. Their gathering spot is The Lexington, a 1935 clubhouse of rich wood paneling with a historic bar where the city’s movers gather to drink the hard stuff and gorge on chicken pot pie, lamb shanks, and turkey dinner. In Minneapolis, power is sexy (or vice versa)—musicians, athletes, models, new money. Their HQ is Bellanotte, an evening-long party that started in 2004. The food is middling Italian, but you’re not there to eat. Creative cocktails, big music, and a killer lounge scene bring them like moths to a flame. 1096 Grand Ave., St. Paul, 651-222-5878; 600 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-339-7200

Find Yourself in the BWCAW
The 1.3-million–acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness tract of boreal forest is home to thousands of lakes and streams, most accessible only by nonmotorized means. Although the virgin red and white pines have long been replaced by new-growth balsams, aspens, and jack pines, the area is one of the last places in America where you can experience accessible wilderness and a kind of silent peace you didn’t know still existed.

Rock with Beethoven, Finn-style
He came from the little-known Lahti Symphony Orchestra in southern Finland to the Minnesota Orchestra in 2003. Within a year, he and the orchestra had embarked on a European tour and a five-year, five-disc recording project of Beethoven’s symphonies. Now, Osmo Vänskä is a rock star in the world of classical music and the orchestra is garnering praise from all four corners of the globe. If you can’t catch them performing Beethoven in concert, pick up a copy of one of their first three recordings. 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-371-5656

Risk Losing Your Hearing at First Avenue
Sitting across the street from Block E and the Hard Rock Café, the black-washed ex-bus depot looks like a sullen teen in the backseat of a station wagon. But First Ave. is long past adolescence—born in 1970, it made it back in the eighties when it starred in Prince movies and hosted Replacement punch-ups. Now it simply goes about its job, hosting loud, angry rock bands seven nights a week. 701 1st Ave. N., Mpls., 612-332-1775

Catch a Play and a Rising Star at One of 100-plus Theaters
Twenty-one-year-old Laura Osnes from Eagan wowed TV viewers to win a starring role as Sandy in Grease  on Broadway. No surprise, she  played Sandy at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres and Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz at the Children's Theatre  Company. Grey’s Anatomy’s T. R. Knight is a Guthrie alum. With more theater seats per capita than any U.S. city except New York, our theater scene is not to be missed. From the starchitect-designed, Tony Award–winning Guthrie and CTC to smaller venues playing host to up-and-coming productions by Torch, Immigrant, and others, the scene offers mainstream, avant-garde, and everything in between. hennepin theatredistrict.org

Top ’er Off at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Gas Station
The gasoline is no more expensive at this little Phillips 66 with its distinctive green tile roof cantilevered over the pumps, sitting on the corner of Highways 33 and 45 in Cloquet. Wright’s late-period futurism is incongruous up here, but the filling station is also notable for its history: It’s the only piece of Wright’s utopian Broadacre City that made it beyond the model shop. Best’s Service Station, 202 Cloquet Ave., Cloquet, 218-879-2279

Summit the Avenue
St. Paul’s crown jewel, its string of mansions along a wide, tree-lined boulevard, is like no other street in the Twin Cities. They let those ramblers in during an era when people didn’t want to live in forty-room homes on double lots. Thank goodness we’re done with that.

Walk Across the Mississippi—on Water
Itasca State Park, Minnesota’s oldest park, is home to the headwaters of North America’s most storied river—so modest here you can literally walk across it. It was just a swamp when the Anishinabe guide Ozawindib led Henry Schoolcraft to it (a dam, fill, and rocks have since been added). The park and its virgin pines are splendid; good for memories that last a lifetime. 218-266-2100

Recite Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha to Your Lover at Minnehaha Park
The most famous American poem of the nineteenth century, the epic saga of the Iroquois warrior Hiawatha and his lover, Minnehaha, was written by an East Coast poet who never actually visited the falls that he preserved in heroic Viking meter. Find a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s masterpiece, lay a picnic out under the statue of Hiawatha and Minnehaha, and compete with the roar of the Laughing Water itself for your paramour’s attention. 4801 Minnehaha Ave. S., Mpls., 612-230-6400

Go to a Big 10 Basketball Game at The Barn
The unique raised floor, the tight seating, the hothouse ambiance with 14,625 screaming fans. The 1928 Williams Arena—our Wrigley Field—is the most exciting sports venue in Minnesota. With Tubby in the house, expect Gold. Score extra points if you know what ski-u-mah means. 1925 University Ave. SE, Mpls., 612-624-3514, gophersports.com

Pay Your Respects at Lakewood Cemetery
City founders Charles Lowry, T. B. Walker, and William Washburn are buried there. So are Paul Wellstone and Hubert Humphrey. But the 1871 250-acre cemetery holds above-ground treasures too. Walk the grounds and view beautiful statuary,  the Lowry–Goodrich Mausoleum (a replica of the Parthenon); the Community Mausoleum, filled with chandeliers, and stained glass, and Impressionist paintings; and the chapel, built in 1909 with amazing Byzantine mosaics. The garden-inspired grounds, patterned after the rural cemeteries of nineteenth-century France, are a horticulturalist’s delight. 612-822-2171
Catch Eelpout in Walker or Walleye on Mille Lacs—in Winter
Most Minnesotans know that ice fishing is a subterfuge, simply a stopgap between the invention of the garage and the Nintendo console. But if sitting in a shack on a frozen lake and avoiding your significant other isn’t your idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon, at least get an abstract impression of the draw. One way is the ridiculous Eelpout Festival, with a cash prize for the biggest (and ugliest—have you seen an eelpout?) fish. Another is to head to Mille Lacs any weekend in January or February. Bring the schnapps, and you’ll be welcome. Feb. 15–17, 2008, Walker

Witness the Northern Lights
This one takes time, luck, and a love of sky gazing, but it brings us to our knees.

Share a Silver Butterknife Steak at Murray’s . . .
Minneapolis’s historic home to steak for sixty-one years. Make sure your garlic toast is warm, but, please, no ketchup. 26 S. 6th St., Mpls., 612-339-0909

Ride the Young–Quinlan Elevators Without Pushing a Button
Much of the original architecture remains, but the last remnant of Elizabeth Quinlan’s famed department store—Young–Quinlan—is the eight-decades-old elevator with operators donned in crisp, white gloves, who tend the metal carriage lifts. Quinlan was the country’s first female buyer of women’s ready-to-wear. The building is now owned by Bob and Sue Greenberg, who chose to retain the historic elevators, the last of their type in Minneapolis. 81 S. 9th St., Mpls.

Discover the Lost 40
Logging put Minnesota on the map—not flour milling, Minneapolis’s claim to fame. Commercial lumbering began in 1830—and by 1900 the state’s hardwood forests were nearly depleted. Thanks to a surveying slip in 1882, 144 acres of virgin red and white pine located in Chippewa National Forest dodged Paul Bunyan’s mighty ax. Now known as the Lost 40, the nearly 350-year-old trees represent what our state’s landscape once was. A one-mile self-guided trail winds through the majestic pines that can live up to 500 years. It ain’t the Redwoods, but it is mighty pine.

Attend a Sunday Service at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church
To the extent that Minnesota still has a Scandinavian face, its high temple is this big, bright, south Minneapolis institution, which, with 13,500 members, calls itself the largest Lutheran congregation outside of Sweden. Not coincidentally, this multifaceted superchurch is as clean, safe, and blandly reliable as your Volvo. Each of its four Sunday services starts precisely at the top of the hour and ends dependably thirty-five minutes later. 5025 Knox Ave. S., Mpls., 612-926-7651

Score a Hockey Hat Trick
Minnesota high school hockey is famous for its outstate rivalries and its March tournament in St. Paul, but to really comprehend our state sport in the modern age, with its teenage gladiators on ice, attend a Hill–Murray Pioneers–White Bear Lake Bears game at old-school Aldrich Arena. These two have been going at it since the mid-seventies—private vs. public, Hill’s four state titles vs. WBL’s none. It’s basically good vs. evil, depending on which side of the rink you sit on. Hit the state tourney and take in a Gopher game at Mariucci—and score a hat trick. Dec.–March, For tickets: Aldrich, 651-748-2511; Mariucci, 612-624-8080

Take the Taconite Trek from the Soudan Mine to Silver Bay
They lowered miners 2,341 feet down into the Soudan Mine, the “Cadillac” of iron mines, to dig up its valuable, oxygen-rich ore. About ninety minutes southeast, in Silver Bay on Lake Superior, they processed it into ready-to-use taconite and shipped it off through the chain of Great Lakes. The hulking, dirty complex built by Reserve Mining hard by the pristine and wild Superior is eerie and otherworldly, both on days it’s operating and those it isn’t. The identity of Minnesota’s Iron Range was forged right here. History aside, Soudan’s foreboding hole (now used as a massive atom-colliding physics lab) and Silver Bay’s sublime cliffs are worth the trip.

Nuzzle Up to Paul Bunyan and Babe
Minnesota has scads of gargantuan roadside sculptures, but the most notable is Paul and the Babe, built in 1937, standing by the shore of Lake Bemidji. (Don’t miss the Fireplace of States next door.) 300 Bemidji Ave.,    Bemidji, 800-458-2223

Paddle Old Man River
Put your canoe in just above the Mississippi’s mile 860 in Brooklyn Center and paddle (or float) the fifteen or so miles to Hidden Falls–Crosby Farm Regional Park. Along the way, you’ll navigate three locks and pass through what seems like centuries of history, from heavily wooded sections suggestive of the time before Father Hennepin to the Mill District of the early twentieth century to the industry and high-rises of today. Rent equipment at Midwest Mountaineering, 309 Cedar Ave., Mpls., 612-339-3433; 651-296-6157

Watch College Football’s Winningest Coach Notch Another “W”
In fifty-four seasons at tiny Benedictine St. John’s University, John Gagliardi has amassed four national championships, twenty-five MIAC titles, and 419 victories. At age eighty, “John,” as the players call him (one of his many unorthodoxies, including no tackling in practice, is to have the players refer to him by his first name), can still be found on the sidelines, as much a fixture as the “Johnny Bread” the monks sell to make rent. Saint John’s University, Collegeville

Visit Gehry’s First
Fifteen years ago, every fuddy-duddy in town was bent out of shape by Frank Gehry’s glistening “tin-can pile” rising on the U of M’s East Bank. Now, compared with the Walker and Guthrie extravaganzas, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum seems tastefully modest—and almost forgotten amid the latters’ hype—though it offers one of the most satisfying art experiences in the metro and is a globally recognized Gehry landmark—four years, we might add, before his Guggeheim Balbao. 333 East River Pkwy., Mpls.

Eat Local Food—Buy It at a Co-op
The Twin Cities is home to America’s most vibrant community of co-op grocery stores. From Seward to The Wedge to Lakewinds and Mississippi Market, they are the ultimate sources for locally grown and raised natural foods. Member-owned and community- and customer-focused, co-ops function as an important counterweight to the cruelties and chemicals of industrial foods and farming in the battle to reclaim the purity of what we eat.

Shop Stillwater, the Antique Antiques Capital
Stillwater, the idyllic birthplace of Minnesota nestled along the banks of the St. Croix River, is the essential Minnesota antiquing experience. Stroll the sidewalks of a town first settled in 1848 and discover many original buildings. A dozen-plus well-edited shops—many housing scores of dealers—offer a buyer’s delight. But what makes this antiquing town truly great is that you’ll find even more nonantiques stores, plus restaurants, wine bars, and coffee shops, which makes for the perfect package. 651-439-4001

Dance among the Amber Waves
As much as we are a state of pine trees, lakes, and a big river, we are also a prairie state. Most of western Minnesota was prairie once—native grasses in golds and greens, punctuated by pink and gray boulders. Then, as now, you’ll find small farm towns struggling to hang on, abandoned churches and homesteads, the odd bison. Renowned Minnesota nature photographer Jim Brandenburg has chronicled the area and created a gorgeous gallery of his work in his hometown of Luverne. His Prairie Foundation works to restore the native prairie, once the continent’s largest ecosystem. It’s a great place to start your exploration. 211 E. Main St., Luverne, 507-283-1884

Bite into a U of M– Bred Honeycrisp Apple at an Orchard
The U did good, no?

Get Away to a Lodge on a Lake, Jake
The quintessential summer lake experience (for those of us who don’t own a cabin on one) is sitting porchside at a lodge, walleye frying in the pan, mosquitoes hovering, the setting too beautiful to flee. There are many such experiences up north, but perhaps the ultimate is at the 1913 Burntside Lodge near Ely. Log cabins dot the shore. There’s canoeing or kayaking—with portages to Native pictographs—the obligatory sauna, playground, and a sand beach. Blue water and pine trees are a given. There’s no TV, and the only blackberries allowed are the ones that grow on bushes. Ely, 218-365-3894

Check Out the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Asian Collection
The local arts powerhouse that gets the least hype, the MIA houses one of the largest Asian collections between New York City and San Francisco, spectacular period rooms, great European and twentieth-century American paintings, and the best traveling exhibitions to come to town. 2400 3rd Ave. S., Mpls., 612-870-3000

Experience Prairie Home Companion, While You Still Have the Chance
Garrison Keillor has been broadcasting his Saturday-night variety program from a St. Paul stage since 1974. As Keillor’s celebrity and ubiquity have grown, the program celebrating/tweaking the smugness, rigidity, and humor of a now-fading white, Lutheran Minnesota has veered to polite, wry humor that public radio devotees laugh at. It is a period piece set in a period piece, but when it’s gone in a few years, it’s what Keillor will be remembered for. Since it’s a radio show, we’d say it’s best experienced by a radio. But if you must see it to believe it, head for the Fitzgerald Theater. 10 E. Exchange St., St. Paul, 651-290-1221; 5 p.m., Saturdays, Minnesota Public Radio

Ring in the Season at Dayton’s Holiday Display
Some people still call it Macy’s. Nov.–Dec., 700 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-375-2200

Ride Out a November Gale in Duluth
Gordon Lightfoot wasn’t kidding. Few natural phenomena in our part of the world are more powerful than the storms of November on Lake Superior. If you’re madly adventurous, a slog along Park Point during a Force 10 gale may be your cup of tea, though we prefer a lake-view window seat with a pint of Witchtree ESB at Fitger’s. Cross the suspension bridge when you come to it—but skip the ore boat. Fitger’s, 600 E. Superior St., Duluth, 218-722-8826

Snowmobile Superior Forest
There’s something heroic about roaring through the deep northwoods, watching white pine blur into a green whirl—evocative of the individual’s will in the face of immense silence. The Polaris snowmobile was invented by a couple of Roseau engineers in 1956 and the sled is our Harley–Davidson. Superior National Forest holds some of the nation’s finest snowmobiling trails—more than 700 miles of interconnected pathways.

Walk in the Steps of the Earliest Minnesotans
Ancient pipe carvers from tribes across North America traveled to the sacred prairie known as Coteau des Prairies (now Pipestone National Monument) to quarry red pipestone. According to Sioux legend, the Great Spirit took the red stone, formed it into a pipe, and told his red children they were made from the red stone, which belonged to all the tribes and must be used for nothing but pipes. Today only quarrying by Native Americans is permitted, but visitors can watch demonstrations. 507-825-5464

Get Lost in the Skyways
Critics say our skyways have sucked the blood out of downtown street life. Fans say the ubiquitous, sometimes bewildering network—eight miles’ worth in Minneapolis alone—is the greatest cold-climate innovation since woolen mittens. Buy a taco, do some banking, view some art. There’s no debate that skyways are forever changing the way we live, work, and navigate the downtowns that, for better or worse, they now symbolize. 

Ride the 21 Bus to St. Paul, Take the 16 Back
Old-timers will recall the car lots, lunch counters, movie theaters, and drive-ins of Lake Street and University Avenue that defined working-class Minneapolis and St. Paul. Today a ramble along the twelve-mile corridors—with stops at the burgeoning Hispanic and Somali markets on East Lake and University Avenue’s engaging Southeast Asian hub—offers a scenic and savory take on the Twin Cities’ immigrant experience circa 2007.

Compare and Contrast our City Halls
Architecturally, the city halls of Minneapolis and St. Paul seem stuck in the wrong city. Old, conservative, (comparatively) frumpy St. Paul claims Holabird and Root’s sleek art deco “skyscraper”; its younger and (comparatively) more progressive “twin” has Long and Kees’s nineteenth-century granite fortress. Each is a spectacular representative of its era and kind, and both are among the most distinguished municipal buildings in America. If you’re not on jury duty or paying a fine, find a way to visit and linger awhile. 350 S. 5th St., Mpls.; 15 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul 

Tour the Capitol during the Session (If You Dare)
A stroll through the lavish marble corridors of state power when our 201 legislators are on the premises is as enlightening—and usually not quite as depressing—as a walk down the Midway at the state fair. On view are our public proxies at their best and worst, in high voice and low comedy, charting our state’s course. In any season, Cass Gilbert’s breathtaking century-old landmark merits an appreciative exploration. 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul,

Camp Out in a Nicollet Mall Skyway for Holidazzle
A big electric parade downtown celebrating the holiday season? We can do that! Nov. 28–Dec. 23

Wend Your Way through Bluff Country
Minnesota’s other grand natural landscape, Bluff Country, draws its moniker and much of its awesome beauty from the dolomite cliffs that anchor the state’s southeast corner. There are also meandering canoe creeks, bike trails, and country lanes through hardwood forest and picturesque villages—such as deservedly popular Lanesboro—in a remarkable topography quite unlike any other in the state.  

Read Louise Erdrich
In her wildly imagined, exquisitely crafted tales, novelist Erdrich (The Painted Drum, Love Medicine . . .) gives as vivid and varied a look at our region’s Native American culture as you’ll find on the printed page. The daughter of Ojibwe and German parents, the widely honored author lives in Kenwood and owns a bookstore nearby. Buy her latest, and, if she’s there, ask her to sign it. Birchbark Books and Native Arts, 2115 W. 21st St., Mpls., 612-374-4023

Reread Fitzgerald, Lewis, and Rolvaag
These three early twentieth-century literary lions helped shape our understanding of the region’s past and character. Luckily, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Ole Rolvaag have become more interesting since you read them in high school and deserve a reprise. Begin immediately—life is short—with the unsurpassed Great Gatsby, maybe the greatest American novel of all.

Savor Sundown at Harriet
If our lakes are the palpable essence of Minneapolis, hanging out at Lake Harriet is the city’s quintessential outdoor experience. Life is good at Lake Harriet anytime, but the hour before sunset is golden. W. 44th St. and Queen Ave. S., Mpls.

Go Coatless in the Cold
The media may focus on the first shorts on a fifty-degree day, but it’s a different kind of cold weather machismo that manifests our winter hardiness. It’s the coatless jaunt across Nicollet Mall on a below-zero lunch hour. Grabbing the newspaper on the porch in bare feet after a snowfall. We may treat snowstorms like the second coming, but the cold is just a fact of life. Layers are for wimps.

Fish the Opener
Though it falls annually on Mother’s Day weekend, Mom still wants to wake at 2 a.m. and sit in the boat with you.  May 12, 2007