Welcome to the BWCAW blog of Ely Outfitting Company and Boundary Waters Guide Service!

See our websites at ElyOutfittingCompany.com and BoundaryWatersGuideService.com.

We are a Boundary Waters canoe trip outfitter, Quetico outfitter, and guide service in Ely, Minnesota. This Boundary Waters blog shares photos, stories, humor, skills, and naturalist insights from guiding in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).

Most entries are from our founder and head guide, Jason Zabokrtsky. He is the Boundary Waters Blogger.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Putting Up Ice at Will Steger's Homestead


I spent today helping arctic explorer Will Steger fill his ice house with lake ice. His homestead is off the grid, on the edge of the BWCA.

A whole crew of folks assembled to help cut, buck and stack these clear, over-sized ice cubes. We used a team of horses pulling a sleigh to haul the ice up from the lake to the ice house.

This is a brief video slideshow from today, with narration about this custom that hails from a bygone era.

2 comments:

Betsy F said...

Wow, this looks like both hard work and dangerous! (What keeps people from falling into the holes as you pull out the ice?)

Jason Zabokrtsky said...

Careful footing is a must! It helps that there are a lot of people pulling, so the chunks pull out relatively easily.