When I attended my first Icebox Days back in January 2017, I quipped that International Falls, officially known as the Icebox of the Nation, felt more like the Refrigerator of the Nation. Temperatures hovered around 40 degrees. Everywhere dripped, sloshed, puddled, and pooled. The water-resistance of my Red Wings was tested. I repeatedly shed and added layers, and much of the sunny proceedings—toilet seat toss, frozen turkey bowling, something called Smoosh Racing—were observed through a fixed squint. And while the winter sky over this village of about 6,000 can typically look and feel like a galvanized lid, that weekend it gleamed a cloudless Barbicide blue.
Photo by Lilly Ball
International Falls, a cool and spectral 4.5-hour drive north of the Twin Cities, earned its frigid moniker decades ago from the American general interest magazine Collier’s. Because International Falls is cold. Like, professionally-testing-the-endurance-of-car-batteries-cold (there’s a Cold Weather Testing Facility adjacent to the city-owned airport). The lowest recorded temperature is -55 degrees, well below the potential for both hypothermia and frostbite.
“Sears Diehard did shoot a commercial here in the ’60s using real conditions with a car on the ice,” says Paul Nevanen, Testing Coordinator/Manager at the Cold Weather Testing Facility and Director of the Koochiching Economic Development Authority (KEDA). “Automakers have been coming to northern Minnesota and International Falls since the early ’60s as part of their cold weather evaluation, and the cold weather testing industry has become an important part of our winter economy.”
The inaugural Icebox Days was held in 1981 “with the goal of providing recreational opportunities and entertainment for local folks and tourists, as well as boosting the local economy during the slow months of retail sales.” This was the first year of the fabled Freeze Yer Gizzard Blizzard Run (FYGBR)—then a 10K, but the abbreviated 5K was introduced in 2003—arguably the festival’s main event.
Bob Connor of Bemidji, known for never missing a single FYGBR, says: “The 10K race has never been cancelled… and was shortened to a 5K only once, back in 1981, when the windchill conditions hit 72 below zero with a -28 degree actual temperature.” Runners’ armaments include “scarves, face masks, layers of Vaseline, and various home-brewed remedies to combat the cold.” Connor adds that “there has never been a casualty.”
Courtesy of International Falls Area Chamber of Commerce
In Jim Harrison’s “Brown Dog,” the titular protagonist mentions: “Sometimes in winter I’ll stand outside in shirtsleeves just for the fun of getting cold.” And maybe there’s something to that. Call it toughness, grit, guts, or spunk—Midwesterners, and perhaps Minnesotans especially, don’t seem to mind the cold. In fact, some of us like it.
When asked if she could live anywhere else on earth, Shannon Arnold, local native and Administrator of the International Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, says, “I’d live in the Black Hills of South Dakota. No tropical locations for me.”
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Icebox Days, taking place Jan. 17-25. Arnold says visitors can expect a greater event schedule at Smokey Bear Park, complete with sledding hills, a snowmobile ride track, igloo making, and a number of other activities, including “Icebox Idol”—their take on ABC’s “American Idol”—turkey bowling, the toilet seat toss, and more.
And, of course, there’s the FYGBR, which, Connor writes, “is more than just another race. It’s got some history, it’s got some weather, it encompasses great spirit (especially when it’s cold!), and it is a lot of fun!” See you there.
