In Ohio: Rescue from an Icy Island

By Chris Redman

When icicles hang by the wall and blood is nipped and ways be foul, when the Great Lakes freeze into ice packs the size of Rhode Island and shipping is stilled, then folks in the Midwest are moved to fish through the ice, a curious, seasonal madness for which there is no known cure except spring.

Soon after the first serious freeze of the winter, the afflicted head for the floes to sit beside holes cut in the ice, lines descending into the depths, where walleye, bass and muskie and perch glide around in the gelid dark, mostly oblivious to the bedlamites above them.

Some weekends, as many as 500 fishermen at a time take to the Lake Erie ice along Jerusalem Township, Ohio, and the shores of Lucas County echo to the noise of chain saws cutting fishing holes. That's how it is on Sunday. Fishermen arrive in force, some driving out onto the ice in pickup trucks to set up the shanties they use for protection, others pulling sledges loaded with equipment and six-packs of beer, still others zinging along in snowmobiles. Temperatures hover around the freezing mark, a moderate offshore wind is blowing out of the southeast. North toward Canada, the ice stretches as far as the eye can see, an unbroken white expanse that merges with the gray horizon of snow-laden clouds.

Early Arrivals Chuck Cornell and Don Van Dyke head out across the ice in Chuck's old Datsun pickup. They drive for about five miles, seeking a quiet spot where the fishing won't be interrupted by the noise and clatter of passing snowmobiles. As usual they have chains on their tires. As usual the pickup's doors are flung wide open--so they can bail out at the first sign of the ice breaking up. Last year Don slipped on the ice and fractured his skull, but it does not bother him. Soon they wrestle Chuck's shanty into place.

They are counting on a good catch to replenish freezer stocks back home. They have wood for a fire, coffee and several pounds of deer sausage to eat. The day seems to be shaping up well.

Just after 10 a.m., with no warning, not even the groan of the floe's straining under the combined pressure of wind and current, the ice pack begins to separate from the shore and starts drifting out into the lake. The movement is almost imperceptible. A few fishermen notice that their lines are no longer hanging vertically, but most assume that is due to currents under the ice pack.

Minutes pass before the alarm is raised. By then the floe has become an immense island ten miles long and five miles wide. Already more than 100 yds. of dark water separate it from Ohio. The ice fishermen know it may soon begin to break up. Some make for the shoreward side, in hopes that small boats manned by local fire brigade volunteers will find them. When rescue boats finally do crunch up to the ice and begin taking people aboard a captain has to explain, "We came to rescue you, not your stuff." As they are ferried to shore, the anglers look back sorrowfully at the gallon buckets already full of fish. Not to mention a dozen or so cars and trucks, snowmobiles and scores of fishing shanties that must be abandoned too. Most fishermen try to remember the small print of their property insurance policies.

Near shore, the rescue proceeds smoothly. But more than 80 fishermen are still stranded farther out on the ice. Jerusalem Township Fire Chief Joe Verb and Rescue Captain Bill Miller have commandeered 20 boats. But Verb is hopping mad. Not only is the Coast Guard unable to provide helicopters (they are grounded in Michigan by fog), but it turns up with what the chief considers totally inadequate rescue support. "What the hell's one 14-ft. boat and five guys going to do in a five-mile area?" he storms. Verb also believes the ice break was caused by a Coast Guard cutter that carved a channel in the ice pack 15 miles offshore on its way to take samples at the Davis-Besse nuclear power station cooling-water outlet. Says he: "It don't take a smart individual to figure it out. If you go down and cut a 40-ft. path through the lake, and you get an offshore wind gusting 15 to 25 miles an hour, it's going to push that floe out."

Giving up hope of Coast Guard help, Verb remembers that St. Vincent Hospital, 15 miles away in Toledo, has a "life flight" Alouette III five-passenger helicopter. By now sleet is falling steadily on the marooned fishermen. Some are beginning to panic, thinking that night will fall before they can be lifted off. "The ice was broke up so bad we couldn't get back to the boats," Don Van Dyke recalls. They stay put, afraid that the thickening weather will keep them from being seen. The big red copter whirls down through the sleet, sending up a cloud of snow as it hovers, barely touching the ice, 30 ft. from the fishing shanty. Chuck and Don and three other fishermen scramble aboard.

As the chattering helicopter carries him to safety in the closing darkness, Chuck takes a last look at his abandoned Dat sun pickup and shanty.

Back on shore other fishermen are already congratulating themselves on their escape. Will they go back to fish ing once the ice refreezes? Fishing maniacs aside, these are hard tunes in the Great Lakes states. A rescued fisherman says: "I need to fish to feed my family." This year has seen the revival of the Depression-era ice-fishing "township" called Smeltonia, near Boyne City, Mich. In Ohio, jobs are scarce, and after a year of recession and high unemployment, benefits are running out.

Next morning the wind changes. The temperature drops. The fractured ice pack begins to knit together again. If that freezing north wind keeps blowing the lake may harden up enough for Chuck to get out on the ice again and drive his Datsun pickup back to shore. Chief Verb thinks he "hasn't a hope in hell," though the cars and trucks are still on the floe.

Other men have been less fortunate. Overnight nine snowmobiles have disap eared. A strange coincidence? Verb guesses that some enterprising crook managed to get to the ice pack during the night with a boat large enough to carry them off. Clearly that ill wind from the south has blown somebody some good.

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