Runaway Ice in Jasper Creek

It's one of those years again at Northwind Lodge.  Last year we had too much snow and brutally cold weather.  This year we're having mildly cold weather (in relative terms) and not enough snow.  For those who don't know it, we rely on snow to be an insulating layer against the cold.  With low snow levels, the cold can penetrate the ground something fierce.  In this neck of the woods, our frostline for building code purposes is 84" or seven feet down.  Unfortunately, that is easier said than done and I do recall a few years back with low snow and cold temps that some people had their septic tanks move upwards from frost making it beneath the tank and freezing the water in the dirt.  The lifting of the tank would result in either breaking the main sewer line to the tank from the home or making the main line now move upwards thereby affecting the flow into the tank.  The residual water remaining in the sewer line, would freeze and plug up making for many unpleasant moments in the homeowner's basement.  With no simple remedy, this sort of thing makes a long winter feel much longer because our frost doesn't usually leave the ground here until mid-May.  So, when I hear our southern brethren tell me that it is just as cold in the Twin Cities, 265 miles to the south, I don't really agree.  Seven feet of frost is just one of the indicators as to the differences in global reality.

For Northwind Lodge, our low snow presents a different kind of problem.  It is mainly in Jasper Creek.   As it flows so beautifully through our property in the summer, it haunts us and taunts us all winter long with threats of overflowing its banks to threaten several cabins. The last major event required taking a chainsaw and cutting a 600 foot long ditch from the bottom (at the lake) all the way past the top of the falls.  We cut the ditch about 10 inches wide with one guy on the saw and another guy on the chisel, popping these huge blocks of ice out of the 16" deep ditch.  When the block gets pried out of the ditch, it sometimes would slide like a 75 pound bobsled down the ice.  We had to watch so we didn't wipe each other out with plummeting ice blocks.  Then, the excess water on top of the glacier gets routed into the big ditch to better focus it's erosive qualities.

When, this first appeared that it was going to happen back in the early 2000's as I expressed my fear about having to solve the problem to Annette, Jackie and Curt, Annette lightly scoffed and told the employees that "Joe overreacts."  She did not realize that "Joe" had done this disaster preventing maneuver long before we had been married and was far from exaggerating.

When the day came that Curt and I began to chainsaw the river, Joe showed Curt how the whole procedure is done.  We take the oil out of the oiler and loosen the chain on the bar.  The saw has to cut backwards in order to be effective.  If you've never cut two 600 foot lines 16" deep into ice climbing up a veritable glacier in screaming wind with your wool pants turned into ice stove pipes, you have not lived.  After Day One of the ice attack, Curt reported to work the next day with stories of brushing his teeth by jumping up and down while Jackie held the toothbrush to his teeth.  His arms were so tired from sawing, chiseling, prying, and sliding huge blocks of ice, that he couldn't hold his tooth brush.

We would finish with the ditch and in less than two days of -20 F, the ditch we cut would disappear completely as if we weren't even there with chainsaw in hand.  Then, we'd do it all over again.  I would cut, chisel, and ditch for hours after the employees left for home, trying to stay ahead of that incessant water.  Some nights I would go out with a head lamp and work some more in the dark.  At the time, we had the lodge open for skiers and the water was heading so hard to Cabin 8, that we put down sand bags that the county gave us to fight the onslaught.  Nothing says "wonderful experience" more than hand-shoveling salt-sand into jaggedy sand bags in a county gravel pit with the wind howling in below zero temps.  

We stacked the bags to re-direct the water and it built up against those bags almost immediately.  The ultimate was when a party from the Twin Cities arrived at an ungodly hour on a Friday night as opposed to a sensible check in time because they don't realize the issues that can surround wilderness existence.  I watched and waited for them and somehow they sneaked by me and parked their Subaru in five inches of ice water, front wheels right up to a row of stacked sandbags.  At midnight, I decided to get out of bed, get dressed and go over to their cabin to see if they arrived.  Sure, enough, they had been there, meeting up with the rest of their party (who KNEW all about the river, the ice, the water, etc.) and they parked their car and were in the cabin "shooting the bull" for hours.

The water was freezing almost to the rims of all four wheels and had to be encroaching the differential on the vehicle.  I knocked on the cabin door and suggested that the owner move their vehicle to a place that is high and dry for the 25 below night we were having or we'd be chiseling that car out of the ice by morning.  They thought it was kind of funny while not realizing how bad it really could have been.  I could not believe that they would park their car with their wheels in the water -anywhere- let alone at a cabin deep in the northwoods.  I just shook my head at the obliviousness that permeates so much of city-dwelling humankind.

One day, when the river was really kicking our butts and we couldn't get ahead of it, I asked 
Annette to don ice creepers and help with chiseling ditches.  She did; it helped immensely and that evening she was completely shot from pounding an ice chisel and climbing up and down a veritable mountain of unforgiving ice for about 5 hours.

And, by that point, nobody thought I was exaggerating about the creek anymore.  

Here's a video of our New Year's Eve efforts to try to stay ahead of the potential nightmare that it could yet become.  This is plan B and it should work.  I don't know what Plan C is yet and I hope I won't need it.

Happy New Year from Joe and Annette Baltich at Northwind Lodge, Ely MN.

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