The 2018 St. Paul Winter Carnival kicked off in dramatic fashion Thursday night with the much-anticipated lighting of a 70-foot ice palace in Rice Park, followed by a brief fusillade of fireworks as Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” played.

Prior to the ceremony, visitors and dignitaries walked down Sixth Street, luminaries in hand to light the way, in the Moon Glow Pedestrian Parade.

Other high points included carnival princesses being bounced in the air and, in a weird twist, a walleye suspended within one of the ice palace’s building blocks for attendees to gawk at.

King Boreas of the 2005 Winter Carnival, Steve Schmidt, caught the walleye in Lake of the Woods, according to palace project manager Joe Gallagher. Gallagher then froze the fish into one of the ice blocks.