Although I came to Skeleton Lake over the winter many times, there are not a lot of jaw-dropping winter stories to be told.

I do remember coming up in the ‘60s and seeing the men sawing the ice in front of what is now Jan and Jim Davidson's, beside what was then Wilson’s Lodge.  Horses and sleighs were used to extract the blocks of ice that would be used in summer ice boxes.  

Ernie LaCroix, the ice man, had a shack at the start of Peninsula Road and his ice house in (I didn't name it) Davidson's Bay.  Bud Temple called it the “Bay of Pigs” … he had girls.  The boys in the Bay,  Jim, John, Jeff, Pete, Dave, Mike and I stayed up almost all summer.  We would ride in the back of the truck, an old F100, as Ernie delivered the ice to the cottagers.  We would watch for him to arrive, go to the ice house and help clean off the sawdust to find the ice; the chunks were about 20 - 24" thick, 18" wide and 36" long.  Each piece would be cut in half, dumped in the rain barrel to clean off the sawdust, and put in the truck. Then off we'd go off for the morning.

The icehouse was an old two-story building made from 12" square hand-cut timber.  When the house was full of ice in the spring you had to go through the second-story window.  I often wondered if it was an original house where it stood or was it moved there.  If you were to look for the ice house now, it's long gone, used by the Insley's to backfill their land when they arrived.  For many years, the younger kids played where it had stood.

I bring this story up as the ice back then was hard, dark blue and thick.  Now it’s maybe 8" thick with different degrees of firmness.  There is no way the ice of today could ever be saved for summer use.

As for Ernie …  he started to work at the Post Office, became the mail man, and built a house out on the highway, close to Skeleton Lake Road 2.  

How winters have changed ... Tom out fishing on New Year's Day, 2022.