Minnesota Winter Wonderland

[AlexPeterson]

You all know we crab about the winter, but there is something magical about it anyway. Things like tons of performance, no cht worries, oh, and no bugs!

You saw a preview of this from Pete H. earlier, but even those of us who live here will find these pictures amazing. Lake Mille Lacs is on of the larger of our ten thousand lakes, at about 20 miles by 10 or so. It is one of the best fishing lakes, and in the winter there is a virtual city out on the ice, complete with plowed roads and street signs (I'm not kidding). There are hundreds of clusters of houses scattered across the lake. There are thousands of fishhouses on this lake, most around 8' x 12' or 16'. All have heat, many with generators, satellite tv, etc..

We saw what seemed to be a runway plowed into it, which looked good from about 30 feet and 160 knots! You can imagine I didn't try to get a picture of that.



Enjoy:

[Louise Hose]

Alex,
Thanks for sharing the photos. Those are sights I've never seen before....only heard about.

[N916K]

Looks like where I'm at right now. Baudette Minnesota. Up here doing winter performance testing. It got a little warm for us today. Hopefully it will cool down so the snow holds up well.

http://www.aettesting.com/

[Gary 40274]

I have known folks that love to make a strafing run at the Ice houses. I of course would never do something Illegal like that.
I got cold and became a snowbird but remember the cold well.

Gary

[keithschult]

Thanks for the pictures.

I haven't seen any of that in person either, so it was nice to see your shots.

[plehrke]

Brings back memories of growing up in Minnesota and my first cross country. Lots of other threads today bringing back memories. The one on the Airplane tracker with Pete flying out of Anoka County. I got interested in aircraft building there as part of the Explorers at Anoka. Also the mention of Lake Elmo airport where I learned to fly.

[Brian Vickers]

My wife has a distant cousin that does what you are describing every winter, but we have never been out there to see it. I had no idea the ice fishing houses were so popular. Thanks for sharing the great photos.

[AlexPeterson]

I've seen a couple statistics citing around 5,500 fish houses on this lake alone. I haven't found the number for the whole state, but it should be available as any house left unoccupied needs a license. I will dig for a total number, but I think Minnesota can safely claim more than any other state

Another piece of trivia: Those folks with the fish houses have a lot of boats also - more boats per capita by a fair margin than any other state.

Certainly someone will calculate which state has the most RV's per capita... Start a new thread...

[N916K]

Originally Posted by AlexPeterson

- more boats per capita by a fair margin than any other state.

Actually it's Arizona and California recently passed Michigan for the most total.

[AlexPeterson]

Originally Posted by N916K

Actually it's Arizona and California recently passed Michigan for the most total.

Huh? Arizona? Were you joking?!? AZ is around 30th for total boats and 43rd per capita. This is from the Coast Guard 2004 I believe, so some shifting might have occurred.