How to calculate Trout Lake's ice-out

 Long-time Trout Lake fisherman George Miller provided his technique for figuring ice-out on this big lake northeast of Red Lake. George is always an opening week angler at Booi's Fly-In Lodge.

George had just read on the blog my system for predicting Red Lake's break-up and writes:

"We've been going to Booi's for opener for over 20 years and as you can imagine watching the ice has become a part of that.  After spending far too much time over the years doing all sorts of statistical analysis of far too much data, this spring I finally arrived on an approach that appears to work very well and is - nearly identical to what you suggested.

It appears the only (and not significant) difference for me is the use of the date snow is gone as the start date of keeping track of temperature.  I decided the snow insulates the ice from temp and sun so the day it was gone would be a good trigger date. I then keep a running average daily high temp. The model I came up with for ice out around the island is 1.5 days longer than 'normal' for every degree below average high, and 2.6 days faster for every degree above normal; average ice out is 27 days after snow is gone.  The entire lake typically goes out completely a week after the island area is open."

 

I e-mailed George back and wondered how he knows when the snow is gone.

"We're down in Rochester so I have to rely on what I can find on the Internet.  Red Lake used to have a remote sensing station that provided snow depth but for whatever reason that stopped a few years ago.  Now I use the station in Ear Falls; at ~30 miles away it seems like the snow cover should be the same.  This is a link to it which has a wealth of historical data also.  

https://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_data/daily_data_e.html?hlyRange=2000-08-21%7C2023-02-27&dlyRange=1999-01-01%7C2023-02-27&mlyRange=1999-01-01%7C2006-11-01&StationID=27865&Prov=ON&urlExtension=_e.html&searchType=stnName&optLimit=yearRange&StartYear=2020&EndYear=2023&selRowPerPage=25&Line=0&searchMethod=contains&txtStationName=ear+falls&timeframe=2&Day=1&Year=2023&Month=3#

One of my favorite tools to see how the ice is doing is from NASA.  Take a look at this link:

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-94.52699079971468,50.81771204930557,-93.70062900759002,51.20978403861764&l=Reference_Labels_15m,Reference_Features_15m,Coastlines_15m,MODIS_Combined_L3_White_Sky_Albedo_Daily(hidden),MODIS_Terra_L3_SurfaceReflectance_Bands721_8Day(hidden),MODIS_Terra_L3_SurfaceReflectance_Bands121_8Day(hidden),MODIS_Terra_SurfaceReflectance_Bands721(hidden),MODIS_Terra_SurfaceReflectance_Bands121(hidden),MODIS_Terra_SurfaceReflectance_Bands143(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor&lg=true&t=2018-04-22-T01%3A47%3A51Z

The layer under Albedo listed on the left hand sidebar is like magic.  It lets you see through the clouds and it seems to give a sense of the thickness of the ice.  The other layer that I have turned on is the Corrected Reflectance (True Color) which is a clear enough image to get a good idea of ice when it isn't cloudy.  With this you can look at past years and see when the ice has gone out too.  Great way of monitoring remote lakes!  When the color is gone under the Albedo layer it seems like the ice is gone a day or so later.

I found ice out history for Howey Bay at this link and it is consistently within a day or so of when I have the ice going out around the island on Trout.  https://hwy105.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2016-ice-out-history.pdf  The entire lake is almost always fully ice free about a week after the island area is open.

It's looking like another late ice out this year so far unfortunately.  The average is roughly a month after the snow is gone that things start to open up.  With (possibly quite a bit) more snow on the way and no sign of melting in the 2 week forecast, it could be a while unless a heat wave comes in."

 

Thank you, George, and good luck fishing this season! 

And while we are on the subject of watching the weather, I like the Windy.com app. It not only has a great radar picture and graphic, it also has links to live weather cams all over North America, including a bunch in Northwestern Ontario. And it has a layer that shows snow on the ground. I'll try to link to that here.

Here's a screenshot below from today.

And the answer is, yes

Back in February I wondered if frozen ground will melt beneath a deep snow pack.
We had three feet of snow here in Nolalu this winter and the ground was well-frozen before the snows came. I reasoned that since the ground is unfrozen farther down, and because snow is such a good insulator, then the frozen ground should melt by the time spring came around. Well here we are, days are getting up to 7 C and we have had several nights that did not go below freezing. About half of the snow has melted and when I uncover the ground beneath the rest of the snow there is mud, not ice!
Incidentally, the deep snow pack was unique to Nolalu and other hilly country southwest of Thunder Bay. Most other areas in Northwestern Ontario had far less snow last winter. Red Lake may only have had a foot or so.
Without even digging through the snow there was evidence that the ground had thawed over the winter. Although lots of snow has melted, there is no runoff anywhere. The water is soaking into the ground and that is a good thing because it was exceptionally dry last fall.

Make Your Ice-out Prediction

Hey! It is almost April and since we're all confined to home anyway, here is a good opportunity to test my system for predicting Red Lake's ice-out.
If you view it on a computer, not a smartphone, you can see how the predictions for the next two weeks compares to normal on the Weather Network's 14-day forecast. Average ice-out is May 8. Days below normal move the ice-out later; above normal move it earlier. Try it out.
Even if we are unable to get to Red Lake in May due to the travel restrictions, we will find out from a Red Laker when ice-out occurs.

Northwestern Ontario ice-out could be late

It is nearly mid-April now and at our home in Nolalu we should be hearing the roar of the Whitefish River, about a mile away. How streams get their designations is a mystery. The Whitefish "River" would just be a creek in many other places. The only time it is the least bit navigable is normally right now when the spring melt sends all of the winter's precipitation down a myriad of rivulets that dump into the river. A month later you can walk down the river in most places, jumping from rock to rock and never get your feet wet.
Today the Whitefish looks just like it did all winter -- frozen from one side to the other with no visible signs of flowing water.
Even though we have lost at least half our snow, none of it seems to have gone to runoff. The ditches are completely dry. The snow has just evaporated in the stronger-than-normal winds.
Temperatures should be +10 C in the days and around 0 C at night. Instead we are just starting to see the first hours of above-freezing with miserly temperatures of +1 or 2 C. At night the mercury plummets to -15 C. The nighttime temperatures are not unlike those of winter.
The reason for all of this is climate change that has sent Arctic temperatures soaring and forced cold air farther south. The result has been Ohio-like winter temperatures at the top of the world and Arctic temperatures in places like Ontario, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
There is about four feet of ice on the lakes everywhere in Northwestern Ontario. That is about as thick as it ever gets. The ice itself acts as insulation that prevents it from freezing deeper. It is only about a month before the opening of fishing season, May 19. Can four feet of ice thaw in just one month?
If fact it can, if the temperatures got back to normal right away but according to the weather forecasts, normal temperatures are at least a couple of weeks away.
A good picture of what is normal can be found by going to The Weather Network Canada
Find the locality you are interested in and click on the 14-Day Forecast. At the bottom will be a chart showing a line for the normal highs and lows.
For places like Red Lake, keep in mind that the normal ice-out date is May 8 with a normal variability of a week before and a week after that date. Then keep in mind that there is about a foot more ice this winter than normal so it will take higher than normal temperatures to melt it on time.
As I said earlier, we have seen in the past four feet of ice melt in a month but that was when the springtime temps were pretty normal for this time of year. That has not been the case so far nor is it expected to change for at least a couple of weeks.
On the positive side, lots of the snow has evaporated and there haven't been recent accumulations of new snow. Every new snowfall sets back the ice-out by about a week. Also the ice itself is what we call blue ice. It is the strongest type but because of its bluish colour melts more rapidly when exposed to sunlight than white ice that reflects the sun rays.
When I put all the factors together my best guess right now is that ice-out is going to be late. For places like Red Lake that could put it around May 19. Nolalu and Thunder Bay areas are usually a week earlier.

Where the heck have I been?

EOSDIS Worldview

 Sorry folks, I was out of the country for nearly a month and was not able to update ice-out conditions on Red Lake. 

The latest that I have heard is that the ice is still shore-to-shore, is 16 inches thick but is candled and ripe for breakup.

I wish I had left my first prediction at May 8 as that is likely close to actual ice-out.

The last few weeks of April turned out colder than normal and that set back ice melting. Again, it is only the weather in April that matters. It was the warmest winter on record but it played no part on ice-out.

You can see daily detailed satellite photographs that show ice melt by going to this site EOSDIS Worldview. The satellite passes over Northwestern Ontario about 3 p.m. EST each day. All it takes to see what is happening with the ice is a clear sky. Unfortunately, the last day that happened was April 24, a week ago. In the screen shot of EOSDIS Worldview above, you can clearly see that Middle and Sadler Bays -- small water bodies at the west end of Red Lake -- are still frozen.

 Zoom Earth also has near real-time imagery but it is not as detailed.

You can also download the free apps for both of these satellites to your smart phone. That is what I have done.

How fast ice-out under ideal conditions?

 

Zoom.Earth, about an hour ago.

Highway 105 at Caribou Creek yesterday. Sherry McCoy photo

The spring melt didn't start until May, exactly one month later than usual, but the weather has been making up for being a stinker in April. We couldn't ask for better conditions -- lots of heat that led to a rapid melt of the snowpack. 

That has created problems with flooding all over the place. Just witness what happened to Highway 105. The normal tiny Caribou Creek about 20 miles south of Red Lake turned into a raging river, overwhelming the culvert under the road and creating a massive washout a couple of days ago. This has left the town stranded although crews thought they would have it fixed today.

There might be reason to think it will take longer. A massive storm is heading for the region today bringing an inch or more of rain along with possible winds up to 80 km-h. That could be bad news for the repair but it would be good news for ice-out on lakes. ** UPDATE ** The highway was re-opened late last night but then another washout further north closed it again. It is expected to be fixed by tonight.

To put things in perspective, there is a LOT of ice to melt. I know of two people who were ice-fishing last week. The temperature was wonderful -- there were butterflies flitting around -- but they were sitting on 30-36 inches of ice.

In Thunder Bay, although the snow has disappeared from people's yards, families went downhill skiing  on Mother's Day. That is a first.

But getting back to ice-out on Red Lake, the rapid snow melting will have sent so much water into the lake that it will have risen a great deal, breaking the ice away from shorelines. This gives the sun dark water to warm around the edges. It also means the ice pack can shift with the wind. When it does the ice will crush against the rocks. Finally, heavy rain followed by warm sun is death to lake ice. And that is exactly what is in the forecast.

Before these developments I was skeptical if the ice could be gone by opening day of fishing, May 21. I now think it is possible, that is, if the weather prediction comes true.

In today's weather warning the weather office notes that the storm, currently over North Dakota, could weaken as it moves over the cold Northwestern Ontario lakes. The warm temperatures for the rest of the week are still forecast.

I am really impressed by Zoom.Earth and its near-real-time satellite images. In particular, when forest fire season finally starts, you can click on its fire icon and see the active heat-producing spots, instead of looking at fire maps that show where the fire has been.

Ice-out on Red Lake will be May 8!

 How do I know this?

Well, April is just about here and using my system that says April's weather is the only month that matters when it comes to ice-out, I look at the Weather Network's 14-day forecast and see that the first two weeks of April are expected to have normal temperatures. Normal ice-out is May 8. So there you have it.

If the actual weather differs from the prediction or if the last two weeks of April are not normal, I will adjust my ice-out time.

When your smart phone can't save you

There are no cell towers out here

When your smart phone can't save you. That would have been a better title for the book reviewed a few posts back.
The truth is when you are really in the "wilderness" or "the bush" as we call it here in Northern Ontario you better have some skills other than how to wiggle your thumbs.
Case in point, you have fallen through the ice. What are you going to do, search YouTube for a way to get out? Or maybe you have been attacked by a bear and are being dragged away. Do you pull out your hip, sleek, digital device and calmly type: What to do if my head is in a bear's mouth?
Even if you did call out to The Cloud, it would fall on deaf ears because there is no Internet service out here, you see. That's why it's called the wilderness. There are no people or any of their inventions like cell towers.  In the Wild, the real Wild, you have to think and fend for yourself.
I've spent most of my life living in or writing about the Boreal Forest and while I don't know everything there are a few tips not often heard that I would like to pass on.

Black bears

The usual advice -- make noise, don't give them anything to eat -- is all that just about anyone needs to avoid bear trouble. But despite taking such precautions it should be noted that there are a few bear attacks every year in Canada, some of them fatal. (Keep in mind there are millions of people entering the bush every year and almost none experiences threatening situations. The odds of meeting a mean bear are incredibly low.) In nearly every case the culprit is a large male bear exhibiting predatory behaviour. My advice is if you ever see a large black bear, leave the area immediately. For instance, if you are canoeing and plan to make camp at a certain location but see a large male black bear anywhere near that spot, keep going. Get at least five miles away before stopping. How do you know if it is a male bear? Because it is large. Females usually are quite small.
Another thing to know is that these bears almost always attack lone people. So travel with a buddy.
If you ever need to do battle with a bear, know this: other than a gun your best weapon is a stout club. Something like a 1 1/2-inch- thick, three-foot-long birch sapling. It won't break when you swing it with two hands and all your might right across the top of a bear's head. Right between the ears is the best target. That's where the brain is located. A bear's skull is not very thick, nothing like a moose, for instance. You can crush it with a club and in so doing kill the bear. You just need one properly-placed hard blow but if you miss slightly and the bear is only stunned, hit it with all your might again, this time in the right spot, then get away.
Chances are the reason you might ever need to club a bear is because it has already grabbed someone who was alone when the bear attacked. Biologists, prospectors and forestry workers are the ones most at risk. They usually work loosely in pairs, sometimes hundreds of yards apart. Many times the threatening bear flees when the second person comes running after hearing cries of help. If it ever comes to stabbing a bear you need a knife with at least a six-inch-long blade to reach vital organs. A better idea is to club it. Bear spray must be sprayed right into the eyes of the bear and even then sometimes doesn't stop an attack.
Never climb a tree to get away from a bear. That's what bears do when they are afraid. A bear that was going to leave you alone might attack if it sees you climb a tree.
Likewise, walk but don't run away. If the bear follows you, even at a distance, make a club and be prepared to make a stand if the bear gets too close.

Traveling on ice

No matter how cold it has been, places with current such as narrows, rivers and creeks should be avoided. The entrances to long, narrow bays also are hazardous. So is the area in front of a beaver house.
Falling through the ice is only one hazard. There can also be areas with slush that can bog down snow machines and get your feet wet. Wet feet become frozen feet.
If you aren't sure about the ice conditions, don't travel.
We must also keep climate change in mind when considering ice travel. Lots of people just have a date in mind to make that first ice-fishing trip. For instance, they might have always gone ice fishing on the first of December because the ice is always solid by that time. Well, no longer. Even if the lake has been frozen for a month, the temperatures might have been insufficiently cold to make thick ice.
Check it first.

Store fuels outside

Never bring fuel cans inside a building where there is fire, machinery or electric motors that can make sparks. Keep the watertight caps secured on the fuel cans and leave them outside in the fresh air.

Just don't take risks

Just like there are no old, bold bush pilots, there are also no old reckless trappers, prospectors, biologists, etc. If you encounter a risky situation where you think you will probably be OK, don't do it. You must KNOW you are going to succeed.
Have you ever heard this saying? Never step on a log that you can step over and never step over a log that you can walk around.

Take out your boot liners

Every time you take off boots with felt liners, take out the liners and place them and the boots where they can dry. The liners will always be damp with perspiration and if worn in frigid conditions the next day can lead to frozen feet.

Carry a butane lighter

All you need to do to survive is make a fire. It will keep you warm and bring help. A butane lighter can light thousands of times. Keep the lighter warm in an inside pocket in frigid conditions or it won't have the pressure to light.
You also need to know how to make a fire in inclement conditions but that will be the subject of a future post.

Click to see the latest on the blog

Whopper forest fire year could be ahead

 

Worldview satellite image shows snow cover

  

 

 

Windy App shows snow depth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all honesty, that could be the headline for any year from now on but there is something really alarming happening -- there is barely any snow in Northwestern Ontario. We're talking one inch for Thunder Bay and areas west along the U.S. border all the way to Manitoba. It isn't much better going north toward Red Lake. They have about four inches. Typically we would have two-to-four feet of snow at this point. There also is less than half the usual ice thickness on lakes.

None of this guarantees that the 2024 fire season is going to be a doozy but typically less snowfall indicates the ground will be really dry come spring. And the frost in that ground is only inches deep this year, not two feet like normal. 

Forest fire experts have been on radio and TV during the last couple of weeks saying there still is a chance disaster might be averted. We can still get some deep snow and more importantly, heavy rains next spring. Just like when it comes to predicting ice-out, it all depends on the weather in April.

The odds are, however, that April is going to follow the same weather pattern we have seen for about six months which is warm and dry. 

We should be prepared for a record-early ice-out, record-low lake levels and a record-bad fire year.

There still are 150 forest fires burning from last year in Northern British Columbia and Alberta but Northwestern Ontario mostly escaped last summer. There was a bit of a fire flap early in the season in the Lac Seul area but then we got enough rain to keep things quiet.

There are other worrisome factors at play too. We are heading into another spruce-budworm cycle this summer, something that happens every 40 years. That means large areas with balsam fir will begin a four-year countdown to death. Each year the tiny budworm caterpillars will eat the new growth off the trees which also continue shedding their needles from years earlier. After four years, the trees are barren and there will be large areas of Northwestern Ontario covered with dead balsam fir that burn explosively. That situation will get progressively worse for years and will move with the prevailing wind a little eastward each season. It starts in Northwestern Ontario and eventually ends up in the Maritimes.

An early ice-out would lead to a rapid heating of the ground by the sun and with little frost, trees will begin to grow, sucking out what little moisture there is in the soil. You get the picture.

I did hear one expert give a weather-related prediction today. Thunder Bay's entomologist says get ready for a "bumper tick year." Oh, boy.

A Yankee in the Canadian Bush -- Wolverine

Me, age 8, with wolverine

Dad with wolverine that was mounted life-size in L&F office

Chapter 8 

The spring of 1961 changed us forever. So many incredible things happened to us at the camp as the ice was breaking up that none of us could ever go back to our former lives.

Bill arrived in the middle of the second day and apologized for locking all the cabins. The ice had gotten so bad, he just figured we weren’t coming until after breakup.

During the next couple of weeks, Bill and Dad prepared the wooden boats for launching and also, when the ice had melted sufficiently, took a boat down the shoreline about a mile to where Bill wanted to build his new cabin. The two men worked felling trees, clearing brush and placing wooden posts to be used as a foundation.

Meanwhile, Mom and I were thrilled by the ice-out process.

One day the ice just seemed to magically start coming onto land. Almost imperceptibly it moved up and over the rocks, shattering into icicles as it did so. The whole shoreline tinkled with the sound of a million icicles falling together. We would learn it was the wind farther out on the lake that was bringing the ice sheet to shore.

The first place to have “opened up” was just north of the camp where the narrows makes a sharp turn. The current as it goes around the bend prevents the ice from freezing deeply in the winter and in the spring makes a pool of open water that grows in size daily.

I wandered out onto a rocky point by the pool one day and was just standing there when I suddenly hit the deck. It was an instinctive response to something I had heard many times on the Pickerel River – a military jet screaming at hundreds of miles per hour just above the tree tops. The jets, coming from an air base not far from the Pickerel and practising low-level flying, would give little warning. There would just be a hint of a roar, followed by a whoosh, then ear-splitting thunder.

So, at the first bit of roar and whoosh, I fell to the rocks and covered my ears. The thunder never came. Instead, when I looked up, there floating in the water in front of me was a little brown duck with a  brilliant gold eye. Just then, another duck arrived. It came flying in so fast I thought it would go right over the pool but it abruptly tilted its wings backwards and to my astonishment made the loud roar and whooshing sound. It had just been air vibrating through the duck’s feathers! This duck was mostly white but had a blue-green head with a white spot. These ducks were Goldeneyes.

My eight-year-old Buckeye ears were fooled another time as well. I kept hearing a pack of dogs barking off in the distance. They sounded like hounds, I thought, and didn’t think much of it until it finally dawned on me that there weren’t houses with dogs here like in Ohio.

The dogs always sounded so far away. I looked down the shoreline in each direction. Nothing. Then I looked at the big hill across the narrows. No dogs there either but as I followed the hill to the top – and then above – I spotted them, in a V. Geese! They were flying thousands of feet off the ground, just specks against the blue sky. Although decades later geese would be common everywhere, in 1961 they were an oddity and I had never seen them before.

The lack of bird life all over North America was explained  the following year, 1962, by a biologist  named Rachel Carson. She wrote a book called Silent Spring about how pesticides were killing all of the birds, insects and even wild plants. It would be a decade before I heard of her work.
If the ice, ducks and geese weren’t interesting enough, one day I walked down to the point in front of Bill’s cabin, peered into the clear water and couldn’t believe my eyes. There were northern pike, by the thousands, swimming nose to tail, just a few feet off shore. Mostly they were single file but occasionally there were twos or threes. They were moving steadily to the north. Every hour another thousand would pass by the point. The spectacle lasted for days.

Of course, Mom and I quickly got our fishing rods and tried to get the pike to strike on spoons and spinners. None would.

We asked Bill for an explanation.

“They are all headed to Dean Creek to spawn. You can see them in there with their backs right out of the water. There are thousands and thousands of them.”

Dean Creek was about a mile away to the Northwest. The pike were apparently coming from Trout Bay, more than a mile away to the South. It was a fish mass migration. After a pause of about a week the whole spectacle happened in reverse but this time the fish were more spread out. They still would not bite.

Meanwhile we made another discovery -- there were nightcrawlers in the yard. We caught a bunch, put them in a can, and. Mom, who was an alpha angler if there ever was one, immediately rigged her fishing rod with a hook, sinker and bobber. No sooner would the red-and-white plastic bobber hit the water than it would be pulled under by a fish.

Her first many catches were whitefish, a species new to us. They were good to eat, said Bill, so we had a few suppers of them.

Then Mom got a lake trout which surprised Bill as he did not believe they could be taken on a worm.

“Now you have the best-eating fish in the lake,” he said. “Let me bake it and you will see for yourself.”

Bill baked it in the oven of his wood-burning cookstove. We marveled at its taste but privately Mom, Dad and I decided we really preferred northern pike, a fish that Bill absolutely abhorred.

“I call them hyenas,” he said. “If muskies are the wolves of the water, then I figure northerns are the hyenas. HaHaHa.”

Eventually the narrows was totally clear of ice and Dad and Bill took off in Bill’s 14-foot aluminum boat for the town of Red Lake, expecting to be gone all day. Instead they were back in just 30 minutes.

Incredibly, while dodging ice packs in Wolf Narrows they had struck and killed a wolverine.

Dad had thought they were extinct in Northern Ontario, and he wasn’t far wrong. This was the last one, at least for the next 30 years.

Bill, who had been trapping at Red Lake nearly his entire life, had never seen one before. Since wolverines were a protected species he wanted to just leave it right there in the lake for fear the authorities would believe he trapped it. Dad, however, thought it a shame to leave the animal to waste. It was a very large male wolverine and probably weighed 40 pounds.

He talked Bill into letting him take it to the Department of Lands and Forests. Maybe he could get a permit to have it made into a rug, he thought.

They came back to camp because the lake was still blocked with ice beyond Wolf Narrows. Bill calculated that with the strong south wind that was building, the lake would be clear the next day.

We took photos of the wolverine and put it on ice. Sure enough, the next day, the lake was open enough for Dad and Bill to boat to town and for Dad to take the wolverine into the Department of Lands and Forests office at Red Lake.

“Absolutely not!” long-time conservation officer Bert Colebourn told Dad when he asked if he could get a permit to send the animal to a taxidermist in Winnipeg.

“This wolverine isn’t going anywhere,” said the warden.

Instead the Red Lake District L&F had the creature made into a life-size mount which has been displayed in a glass case at the office ever since. That was a far better way of honoring the old wolverine, Dad agreed.

...to be continued

Other postings in this series:

Prologue

Rough Draft

Bad Ice

Why Here? 

A Gold Mine

Talking Bill into Selling

Red Lake in the '60s  

First Winter

Bullies

Red Lake 2020 ice-out today, May 13

Scene from Red Lake Marine. Bay is clear of ice. Sherry McCoy photos

I just heard from Sherry McCoy at Red Lake Marine that Howey Bay was free of ice for the first time this morning.
It has been unusually cold this spring which delayed the ice-out a little. Average ice-out is May 8.
I haven't been paying too close attention to the weather stats but still thought it would take to May 17. I'm glad to be wrong.
There has been an unusual amount of wind this spring. Many days have seen wind in the 30-40 km-h (20-30 mph). The wind has done some strange things. Here at our home in Nolalu, our 40 inches of snow mostly just evaporated. Creeks and rivers never had much runoff.

Just a day or two ago

A Yankee in the Canadian Bush - Bad Ice

My mom, Del, and me on the ice in Trout Bay, 1961

Chapter One

The little Cessna 180 fired up, turned abruptly and blasted my mom and me with its propwash. Then the pilot gunned the throttle and the little aircraft quickly left us behind, its metal skis clattering along the uneven lake ice. In a minute it was airborne and after gaining altitude banked around and came right back over us, hundreds of feet in the air now. The pilot wagged his wings back and forth, a friendly gesture. In minutes the sound of the aircraft was gone and we were left in absolute silence, alone in the middle of a frozen lake in Northwestern Ontario. It was 1,300 miles from the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, where we had started but it might as well have been the far side of the moon.

 At age 8, I was thrilled at the adventure that lay before us. I’m sure my mom, Del, was praying, “Dear God, please bring the plane back with Don.” That would be my dad who was left back in the little town of Red Lake, Ont. There had been no room for all three of us and our gear in the little ski plane.

There was nothing to do but sit on our suitcases and look at the dense forest on the shores a half mile away in any direction. A couple of ravens flying over a ridge was the only movement. There wasn’t a sign of human life anywhere.

“How’s Silky?” my mom asked.

I unbuttoned the quilted cover on his Brownie camera-sized cage. My green-and-yellow budgie or parakeet was firmly grasping his perch.

“He’s fine,” I replied, not even aware of how incongruous it was to be sitting on a sheet of ice in Northern Ontario with a tropical bird.

With these possessions we were ready to start a new life in the wild

In an hour the plane returned, unloaded my dad and the rest of our possessions and departed. We took stock of our things: there were many boxes of groceries -- enough to last a month -- one piece of mis-matched luggage each, a home-made box of carpenter tools, a tiny box crammed with mechanic tools, a Second World War portable typewriter and a make-up case filled with half-empty bottles of medicines and bandages. It wasn’t just the stuff we had brought for the trip, it was everything we owned in the world and with it, plus a walk-behind Lawnboy mower, a propane fridge and stove and a couple of things salvaged from the dump still back in town, we began what would become a 56-year life in Ontario’s North.

In the fall of 1960 my parents had signed an agreement to purchase Bow Narrows Camp. It was a new beginning for them. Two years earlier they had lost everything that they had worked for their entire lives: a construction business, a dream home, their car and truck, all of their possessions. Everything had been foreclosed upon and confiscated by the IRS and the bank after a series of home buyers reneged in purchasing homes my father had built for them. When money was running out, they had paid their life-long employees, not the big guys. They hadn’t declared bankruptcy but there was absolutely nothing left.

Instead of seeing it all as a crushing blow, these two who had been a young couple in the Great Depression decided it was an opportunity to try something new. So they left their lives of football booster clubs, PTA meetings and Boy Scout fundraisers behind and now were walking across the ice with their youngest child, suitcases in hand, refugees in a new land.

It must have been an especially daunting experience for my Mom. Not only was walking on a frozen lake a first for her, so was the flight. She said later she had been tempted to get out of the plane back in Red Lake after the pilot had got in, seemed perplexed and then opened the door to yell at the ground crew.

“How do you start this thing?” he asked.

Someone came over and pointed to a spot on the newly upholstered dashboard. The starting button was hidden behind the fabric. It had not yet been cut out.

It had taken 20 minutes in the air. Now we had a mile and a half to walk to the camp. The temperature was in the 50s F and the ice was in bad shape. That is why the pilot had set us down so far away. Out on the big bays the ice was still sound. Closer to camp where it was shallower, there was open water around many of the islands and the shoreline. It was nearly the 1^st of May.

As we walked my dad kept reassuring us that the white sections of the lake ice were good. There were also dark sections.

After awhile we came to a two-storey log building. It would eventually become part of the camp but at that time it was privately owned and was a relic from the famous 1926 Gold Rush. A beaver had cut down a large poplar tree right in front of the cabin and the tree laid across the top of the ice, spanning the moat of open water between the ice sheet and the shore. We used it as a bridge.

We found a faint trail leading to the camp which lay through the dense forest a couple of hundred yards farther.

Stepping out into the clearing of the camp, it became obvious that no one was there. The owner, Bill Stupack, had said in a letter that he would make sure to be at camp around the first of May. Bill was a trapper and a prospector and apparently was off pursuing those activities.

On the door to his private cabin was the message: “Back every other day.”

It wasn’t clear on which day we had landed.

“I bet Bill has a toboggan around here somewhere,” mused Dad. Sure enough, he found a toboggan hanging on a shed.

“I think I’ll stay here, in case Bill comes back,” said Mom who I think had been unnerved by the deteriorating ice.

Dad and I took the toboggan and started back toward Trout Bay. We would make three trips before all of our possessions were back on dry land.

Sunset at that time of year in the North doesn’t come until late. When it was drawing near it became evident that this must be the day that Bill wasn’t coming back. All of the cabins were locked. Dad inspected them all to see which could be broken into the easiest and settled on a log cabin next to Bill’s. Using a crowbar from the carpenter box, he pried off the hasp and padlock.

Inside was a room with a table and chairs and a counter with pots, pans, plates and silverware and a Coleman stove. There were two bedrooms, each with a double bed and on each bed was a single, cotton blanket. We had not brought blankets since we knew each cabin was furnished with them. But Bill had locked the blankets up in a cabinet in his cabin to protect them from mice over the winter.

Fortunately, there was a tin wood stove in the kitchen area and nearby was a woodshed. The temperature was falling rapidly. It would go below freezing that night.

Dad got a fire going in the stove, a bucket of water from the lake, and in short order the cabin was toasty. There was fuel in the Coleman stove and Mom cooked up supper. We laid down in our beds with our single blanket and quickly fell asleep while outside the horizon stayed light for hours after the sun set.

...to be continued      

Other postings in this series:

Prologue

Rough Draft