Arnie Nelson lifted the chainsaw, strode about a hundred feet, cranked it up and sent ice chips flying in a blur of exhaust fumes. ” ‘Bout 11-12 inches,” he said, after hitting water. “You’d still be OK here with your car.”
A foot-thick layer of ice might sound sturdy in most circumstances, but we were standing on top of 170 feet of some of the coldest water Lake Superior has to offer. Also, we were more than a mile from land.
Nelson practically has a PhD in frozen liquids, but his assurances do not automatically instill confidence in newcomers. People walking on the faraway shore appeared to be specks. On this bright, still morning way out on the ice, if you closed your eyes and concentrated, you could swear the surface supporting you — and Nelson’s pickup truck — was gently rolling, like the deck of a large cruise ship.
There also was an occasional cracking sound.
Actually both sensations are real, according to Nelson, but it’s only first-time visitors who tend to get nervous.
We had just left a well-traveled, 2 1/2-mile road plowed across the Lake Superior ice connecting Bayfield with Madeline Island, and it was alive with vehicular traffic. There were a half-dozen ice fishing tents nearby, and a cross-country skier in the distance was making his way from the island to the mainland.
Can a traffic light be far behind?
This winter’s snow and cold has been celebrated everywhere in the state, but no one seems to be reveling — or driving — in it more than the 250 or so year-round residents on Madeline. It is the only permanently inhabited island in the Apostle archipelago off Wisconsin’s northwest coast.
“We love having that ice road because to us it’s like being liberated,” said Janel Ryan, who, with husband Rich, operates a restaurant on Madeline. “For those of us up here, this can really be the best time of the year.”
Instead of living locked to local car-ferry schedules or depending on Nelson’s wind-sled service when the ice is too thick for boats to navigate, Madeline Island residents and their counterparts on the main shore are suddenly free to jump into their cars, trucks and snowmobiles, and drive across the water.
Nelson calls it the “County I extension,” in honor of the regular county highway that ends only a few hundred feet from where this temporary roadway begins.
“That road means freedom to us,” said artist Diane Marie, a year-round islander. “It means we can go back and forth anytime we want. It means I don’t have to wait for a ferry to go grocery shopping!”
Eight-week run
This year, the prediction is the local deep freeze might give the County I extension about an eight-week run, which would be one of the longest in recent years. In 1998, the weather was so mild that the ferry ran all winter.
A third-generation islander and official gatekeeper of the ice road for the county, Nelson declared it officially open for traffic this year on Jan. 19. That was a week earlier than last year.
“You might say Arnie is our professor of ice-ology,” said Leeann Merrill, Madeline Island Chamber of Commerce executive director. “Nobody in their right mind travels across the ice until he says it’s all right. Even then, you might not want to wear a seat belt.”
Nelson takes his standing seriously. In addition to private citizens enjoying their seasonal liberty, school vans with children and delivery trucks make runs over the ice road when it’s open.
The islanders save their Christmas trees every year to mark the route, propping the evergreens in snow piles about a hundred feet apart. Nelson, his chainsaw at the ready, checks the ice road daily to make sure everything is holding firm.
He knows, for instance, that weak points are more likely to occur near the Bayfield shore because of the lake currents. He inspects under snowdrifts, which can shield the ice from cold temperatures and cause melting.
Adding a little ice
“We’ll even hose an area down with water to add a little ice,” he said. “Nature can be a little slow. Sometimes we just help her along.
“When a spot goes too soft or the cracks don’t look good, we find stronger ice and plow a new path around the bad area. I’ve seen winters where the road winds all over the place, up to 5 miles or so.”
Nelson posts signs at both ends of the ice road advising drivers of current conditions: “Cars and light trucks only”; “Travel at your own risk”; or “Ice road closed.” There have been no problems thus far.
During this time of year, Nelson owns a van service for those on the island without a car, or people who don’t wish to drive one on the ice. He also operates the propeller-powered wind-sled, an enclosed, boatlike vehicle that skims on runners over ice and water.
“The wind-sled can get a little noisy and passengers wear earplugs,” said Ryan. “But Arnie got a new one a few years ago and it’s a lot nicer. The best thing about going on the wind-sled, as opposed to the ferry, is that it’s much quicker.”
Bob Mackreth, a historian with the National Park Service office that administers the Apostles, says the wind-sled first came into local use in the 1940s.
“Until then, people were pretty much stuck on Madeline when the ferry didn’t run, though some would cross on foot or dogsled. Some skied, too.”
The custom-made wind-sled comes out when ice is too thick for the ferry but not strong enough to support regular traffic on the ice — typically in the weeks just before the road is opened and just after it closes for the season.
Wind-sled season brings a little parking boom for Bayfield, as islanders who drive to work on the mainland have to leave a car on shore when the ferry stops for the season and the ice road isn’t open.
“On the first day the road opens, there’s this mad dash by everyone to drive their car back to the island,” said Marie. “It’s kind of funny to see all the traffic.”
Madeline is approximately 2 miles wide and about 10 miles long. The island is the largest of the 22 Apostles, ranging from 1 mile to 25 miles off the coast, and it is the only one not administered by the National Park Service.
No one lives year-round on any island but Madeline, but almost all of them are popular in the summer. Sightseeing and private boats take visitors to them to explore and hike. There are lighthouses, beaches, and all sorts of evidence of past habitation by commercial fishermen and loggers. There also is wildlife and this includes bears, said Mackreth.
No formal ice roads
There are no formal ice roads connecting any other islands to the mainland, but the NPS historian noted some of the more adventuresome residents of the area snowmobile, dogsled or hike to them as the ice hardens. This is not encouraged.
“Up to the 1950s, fishermen would go to some islands and remain all winter,” he said. “The range [of the ice] varies from year to year depending on the weather. It’s been pretty limited the last few years until this season.”
Madeline Island’s lone village, LaPointe, is a bustling community in the summer, when its art galleries, shops, bed-and-breakfast establishments and restaurants are popular with tourists.
In the winter, a few businesses remain open year-round and a convenience store — the only place on the island stocking groceries — keeps scaled-down hours. Still, LaPointe eateries such as Lola’s Lakeside Restaurant and the Bell St. Tavern represent a welcome change for Bayfielders on the opposite shore.
“We’re only open on weekends, and business is good when there’s an ice road,” said Ryan, of Lola’s. “We can’t get distributors to make any deliveries with their trucks, but now we can just load up our car and go back and forth whenever we need.”
This feeling of liberation by residents and business people alike on Madeline has been lost in recent years due to our milder weather.
“We needed a good winter like this one,” said Nelson. “Global warming is not a popular concept in these parts.”
