Ice Part III

Last week and the week before I wrote about lake ice. This is Part III of the ice store. In talking about the ice I added that you should always check the local conditions before going out onto the ice. We had a group into one of the large cabins who were going out for the opening of ice fishing on Saturday. Their means of transportation were going to be several ATV’s to the east end of the lake.


Along the south shore of Gunflint is a pressure ridge. One of the ATV’s went through the thinner ice associated with this pressure ridge. The machine went 2 ½ to 3 feet in the water. Since there were other machines, the men were able to pull the one ATV out of the hole. Everything worked out OK but it is always a scare to go through where you think there is solid ice. I am sure that there will be other events regarding the ice as the winter goes along.

The big question right now concerns our snow conditions. The answer is that we are skiing on a thin layer of snow with a hard base. Everyone would love some new snow to go on top of what we have. Our temperatures are in the low single digits but above zero.

There was one morning that the road ice was treacherous. Dave at the front desk has a five-minute drive to work. That morning it was 45 minutes. When Bruce walked out to his truck to drive down to the lodge, he dusted the ice with his butt. I stayed in the house and did not attempt to go anywhere until the temperature changed later in the day. Even then, no one was driving very quickly around here.

Bruce and I have been getting a few laughs watching the Los Angeles weather. (We don’t get local – Minneapolis – stations because we would have to cut down two white pines to see the satellite.) Out west they are complaining about the cold conditions when the temperatures are in the forties. That would be a real heat wave around here.

Slowly our house is looking quite bare. Don is saving grocery and liquor boxes for me. We are going to needs lots and lots of boxes to get everything over to Tucker Lake. In fact Bruce just came in with a few more boxes. Without having food delivered for a commercial kitchen, I don’t know how you would accumulate enough boxes to pack a household up. At any rate I am slowly getting the job finished. We are lucky to have a staff to help move everything. Moving a dozen boxes a day is one thing, but I don’t think that I am up to moving all the boxes at one time. Boxes of books are heavy. I have five boxes of cookbooks alone after I gave a bunch away to the library.

The best part of the moving project is the end result.