Northwoods Adventure: Nisswa Celebrates 27th Annual Winter Jubilee

Snow sculptures, a parade, and a wood splitting competition were all taking place at Nisswa’s 27^th annual Winter Jubilee over the weekend.

“Get outside, that’s basically what it’s about,” Tina Foster, the head volunteer, said. “Get outside, enjoy winter – we’re stuck with it half the year, you might as well enjoy it.”

A parade kicked the events off at the Nisswa Winter Jubilee, and families were also building their snow sculptures to decorate the downtown area.

“We had just kids, we had families, and we had just adults working on them, so they are all different skill-wise, but they all turned out great,” Foster said. “We are just really happy to have them here in town.”

The Nisswa Chamber used to organize the event, but now it’s all done by a group of volunteers who don’t want to see the winter celebration go away.

“The Chamber had it for a couple of years, and the last two years now it’s just back to a community event, where locals are getting together to make it happen,” Foster said.

One event that has stood the test of time is the wood chopping contest, and this year’s winner, who split all of his logs in less than two minutes, is looking for more competition next year.

“I tried setting them all up first, but there wasn’t enough room, so I set as many up as I could and split them,” Giles Radtke, wood chopping champion, said. “Come next year and take me on, whoever wants to beat one minute and 59 seconds.”

There was a new event at this year’s Jubilee called smoosh racing. Teams of four were strapped together to one pair of skis as they tried to race around a track. But the first year of smoosh racing did not go as planned.

“We’ve had some problems with Velcro breaking, and rope that didn’t really work,” volunteer Jon Bocklund said.

“We only had one board, the straps were breaking, but we finished with one board and one guy – we made it through,” Jared Braun, a smoosh race competitor, said.

Smoosh racing isn’t going away, however, as they plan to revamp the event for next year.

“The weather the last couple of weeks was so cold, we didn’t get out here and test them the way we should have,” Foster said. “So, we know a lot more about these things now so they will be perfect for next year.”

The Jubilee ended with a night of live music and a fishing contest the next morning.

Also, raffles from the Nisswa Winter Jubilee went to support the Wounded Warrior Project and the Lakes Area Food Shelf.