The Ice Break Raffle

The Ice Break Raffle

I was born and grew to adulthood in the Midwest; South-Central Wisconsin to be exact; Wisconsin Dells, to be precise. “The Dells”, of my youth, was fondly referred to as a “tourist trap” by locals and as a “vacation destination” by travel agents world-wide. In the middle of the twentieth century, the 50’s, Wisconsin Dells claims to fame were scenic views of sandstone rock formations adorning the banks of the Wisconsin River.

These geological wonders were the result of the last ice age and the glacier that covered most of the area of the upper Midwest. I understand the last glacier couldn’t get a foot hold on that section of land because it had once been an ancient beach, by then transformed into a shelf of layered sandstone kept too warm by the ice age sun to allow for glacial advancement. So, the glacier encircled that area. At the end of the Ice Age, the glacier’s constant water runoff carved a channel through that sandstone plain, resulting in a gorge which, eventually, became the bed of our current Wisconsin River.

None of that scientific stuff registered with me until I was older. But I learned quickly about life in a unique small town. There were souvenir shops on every corner and most businesses downtown were seasonal in nature, only open during the height of the season. Our tourist season ran from Memorial Day to Labor Day. By the time my birthday rolled around in mid-September, wooden “sidewalks” (laid down each spring in front of some businesses) were literally stored away, to protect them from winters’ onslaught of snow and ice. Tourism ground to a halt for all but the most intrepid and adventurous of travelers. Those who came to our area in winter were usually from similar climates…like Siberia.

Grandpa Fred was a full-time businessman in The Dells. The seasonal tourists only meant he was busier in the summer. He kept himself busy all year round. Some would say Grandpa Fred was a sportsman. He might beg to differ, perhaps, fancying himself an outdoorsman. He learned to hunt and fish for survival long before the advent of sport fishing or trophy hunting. Among his many skills was fly making. He made his own lures for fly-fishing by pouring molten lead into molds to set the hooks into weights, then attaching hair of a deer tail he had bagged the previous deer season using his hand-made bow and arrows. Fred loved fly-fishing but when the winter freeze stopped the water flow in local streams, he took to ice fishing with the same enthusiasm.

Winters in the Midwest were then and still are, if nothing else, bitter cold. Sub-zero temperatures could always be counted on by early January. Farmer’s fire ponds and cattle watering ponds always froze solid first. Larger ponds like lakes took a bit longer, but soon the ice would be thick enough to walk on and days later to drive on. When that happened, it became Ice Fishing season.

Local service clubs like Rotary or Elks or the Moose lodge would often host a “Fisheree” on one or more nearby lakes every year. Anglers of all ages from all walks of life, even from neighboring states took to ice fishing, competing for prizes and bragging rights. Awards for the biggest, the heaviest, the longest and so on were common. Small "towns" of fishing shanties sprung up in a matter of hours. Sometimes hundreds of winter anglers ante-upped the entry fee. It was a party on the ice.

These “Fisherees” ran for days; some for a weekend, some a whole week, some for a fortnight. A requisite part of every Fisheree, it seemed, was for the sponsoring service club to drag or push some wreck/clunker of an automobile out to the center of the lake, setting it atop the thickest part of the ice pack. Many times, a festive perimeter of colorful pennants would help make the wreck visible from shore. It seemed to me, even at a tender age of nine, that the most interesting aspect of the whole festival was that raffle they called “Ice Break.”

The hosting group sold chances to pick the exact day, hour, minute and second that the clunker would break through the ice and sink to the lake’s bottom. Usually first prize was cash, sometimes as much as half of all ticket sales, with second and third prizes consisting of a fine fishing rod or other fishing accessories. These raffles were very profitable for hosting groups and if the wreck did not break through before the last time guessed, additional chances could be sold. Wisconsin winter weather was highly unpredictable.

One year, in early February, Grandpa Fred let me tag along to spend the day ice skating and otherwise freezing my butt off watching him sit in his fish shanty patiently monitoring a roundish hole in the ice for any indication of a nibble. The highlight of my day was when he let me pick the dates and times for four raffle chances. He said, “Now don’t be silly, boy, picking tomorrow or Wednesday. And don’t be picking a time after sunset. Go for the height of the days heat. And don’t go picking a day past Easter. We’ll have Irises and Lilies sprouting by then.”

Since I’ve always had a knack for remembering dates, I picked the days my Dad and his brothers and sister were born. Uncle Ken was March 15, Uncle Don was born on April Fool’s Day, Aunt Carolyn arrived on April 24 and ignoring Grandpas warning I made the fourth one a few days after Easter, May 2, Dad’s birthday. I made them all for the same basic time of day. Kens was at high noon, Uncle Don got noon thirty, I pegged Carolyn for one o’clock and Dad’s time was two pm.

A late February thaw cracked the ice and the front tires slipped through the ice and stopped. Until the whole thing went to its watery grave, the raffle continued. A subsequent storm that night reinforced the ice pack upon which the auto set, freezing the submerged tires into the thick ice sheet. Strong, freezing winds blew every day of March. By April Fools Day the ice pack was thicker than it had been when they set the car out there. Grandpa and I drove out to the lake shore every day to check on the status of the soon to be sinking car. A reluctant spring thaw made slow progress thinning the ice. On May first the car finally moved again. Grandpa Fred and I were there and saw it happen. This time the rear wheels crashed through leaving the chassis of the vehicle flat on the ice now floating in the middle of an otherwise ice-free lake.

Finally, at 2:00 pm on the second of May, the clunkers’ heavier front end flipped the ice float over, plunging it to the bottom of the lake. Grandpa won the Ice Break Raffle that year with the after Easter long-shot ticket I wrote to mark my Dad’s birthday, May 2. I don’t know how much money Grandpa Fred won, but he shared his good luck with me. He gave me a two-dollar bill.