Every year about this time Moosehead Lake begins to exert a magnetic pull on the iceboater expeditionist. The snow has gone, scads of thickness remain. The game becomes balancing cold with wind. There are few things as tense as driving to Moosehead at the crack of a spring dawn watching the car thermometer hovering at 31 degrees. We’ve been skunked there a number of times. The most memorable is when a big group showed up only to find slush. Denis had come down from Canada just to be social, knowing that his lake was in pretty good shape. So on his suggestion we all took off for the border, a caravan of perhaps ten iceboat trailers. Denis wound up driving five hours to get to his home ice. We sailed Lac St. Francois for three days.

Now we have this situation where the forecast for the next three days looks pretty good, although there might be some snow tonight. We won’t know for sure until dawn. But the five guys below had no idea when they lit out for the lake on April 17, 2017 what they’d find. They appear to be pretty happy.

Lodging open at The Birches and Kelly’s Landing. Bring your own food if you’re staying at The Birches. Launch will be at The Birches.