AMERICAN SCENE: Minnesota: A State That Works

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accessibility of nature has much to do with the Minnesotans' sense of place and roots. More than almost any other Americans, they are outdoor people, and at least 50% of them customarily vacation within their own state. The seasons have their own sporting rhythms. On summer weekends, the traffic moves bumper-to-propeller out of the Twin Cities toward what has become a Minnesotan index of the good life—the "lake up north." The state's license plates advertise it as "Land of 10,000 Lakes," but that is an understatement. Actually, there are 15,291 lakes of ten acres or more, as well as 25,000 miles of rivers, including the Mississippi, which begins at Itasca State Park near the center of Minnesota. The lakes cover 5% of the state, remnants of the glaciers' departure a million years ago. Few Minnesotans are more than minutes from water. Minneapolis residents have 21 lovely quiet lakes within the city itself.

In the fall, Minnesota is a hunting society: 253,668 deer licenses are issued annually. But for all the gunfire, the deer population now numbers about 450,000, and seems stable. Other game includes duck and pheasant, moose, black bear and timber wolf.

Winter, which brings down ferocious cold from the polar icecap, used to be a comparatively closed-down season, a deep hibernation. Snowmobiles, for better and for worse, have changed that. Many Minnesotans now worry about the ubiquitous high-pitched snarls of snowmobiles churning across the winter landscapes. Still, snowmobiling is the state's fastest-growing sport. Some 340,000 vehicles are licensed now.

As a winter alternative, thousands of Minnesotans are rediscovering cross-country skiing, or snowshoeing, or ice-boating. Ice hockey is also something like an obsession in the state. Since the land was settled, Minnesotans have enjoyed ice fishing, sometimes in opulent style. In the Twin Cities' expensive suburban community around Lake Minnetonka, while their children skate, executives sit in their carpeted cabins on the lake ice, drinking bourbon, playing poker, occasionally pulling in a pike from one of the holes drilled in the ice.

Winters are hard but bracing: "Our best time of year," according to a Duluth mine worker. "They build character," says Frank Barth, a transplanted Chicagoan. "They are a great blessing to us. You don't get the weak-kneed beachboys here. They can take it for one winter, then leave." Dr. Ronald J. Glasser, a Minneapolis kidney specialist and author (365 Days, Ward 402) who grew up in Chicago, argues that Minnesota winters account for a lot of the social solidity and character of the state. Says he: "You have to be strong and productive to survive here."

Part of Minnesota's secret lies in people's extraordinary civic interest. The business community's social conscience, for example, is a reflection of the fact that so many companies have their headquarters in the state. The Mayo Foundation has offered to invest $1,000,000 in face-lifting the downtown district of Rochester. The IBM plant there has given employees leaves of absence, with pay, to work on public interest projects. At the Mayo medical complex itself, now in the midst of its largest expansion in history, Honeywell, 3M Co. and other big state-based corporations have been major contributors to a $100 million fund