SPIRIT LAKE: The ice is very thin
Just one week ago Sunday, I was enjoying watching hundreds of ducks dipping their heads into Spirit Lake about 200 feet off my dock. It’s extremely unusual for our medium-sized lake to still be mostly unfrozen in mid-January. I opened my curtains the next morning — Inauguration Day — to discover that the lake had finally frozen over during the night, joking with a friend “it was probably the Trump effect.” I was therefore horrified to spot two husky teenage guys out there on ice skates just six days later, exactly where the ducks had been playing in open water! They were standing and talking on maybe three inches of ice at best, so I ran outside to holler a warning to them when they started to skate back to the thicker boat launch area.
First thing Monday, I phoned the Spirit Lake fire department to ask them to put up a warning sign at the boat launch before this weekend when snow is expected, followed usually by heavy snowmobiles hitting the lake. But under current conditions — which includes some daily melting in the sun followed by refreezing at night — they would probably soon be entering the lake! Although they have a fire and rescue boat on Spirit Lake every summer, they told me it’s the city’s responsibility. So I phoned city hall and they said no, it’s the county’s park and lakes department which should handle that. I then made a third call only to find that no, it’s another county department responsible for the main boat launch.
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