Lighting of Ice Palace along Detroit Lakes City Beach Brings Crowd

Crowds gather to watch the grand lighting of the ice palace along the Detroit Lakes City Beach.

DETROIT LAKES (KDLM) – The Grand Lighting of the Ice Palace along the Detroit Lakes City Beach took place Saturday, after being postponed a day due to inclement weather.

Volunteers harvested around 2,000 blocks of ice from the lake to create this year’s Ice Palace. The palace is around 95 feet long, 24 feet deep and 32 feet high. That’s nearly double the length of the first ice palace built in 2018.

“You know Detroit Lakes is a very giving city and its taken a lot of people to make this happen. Hard work always pays off…about 4.5 years ago a group of men and women who I’m going to call Detroit Lakes ambassadors came up with an idea to build an ice palace and you can now see the results of that work,” said Detroit Lakes Vice Mayor, Ron Zeman.

The grand lighting ceremony officially kicked off Polar Fest, 17 days of events and activities throughout Detroit Lakes including an ice maze, frozen fireworks and the polar fest plunge.

Polar Fest is held annually in February. It was created and run by an independent, all-volunteer committee in Detroit Lakes.