Ice-Out on Farm Lake, Ely MN - just outside of the BWCA

It's March 31st, with a high of 70 degrees, the wind is blowing 15mph SW and it looks like the ice will be off the lake today! This will be the earliest we've seen ice-out on Farm Lake since we moved here in 2002. Typically, we see the ice leave us around the 3rd week of April, but then in 2008 it did hang around until May 8th.

The picture above shows some open water by our main dock and you can see some large cracks in the ice heading out from our shore.


This picture was taken 20 minutes later. You can now see a large crack going from left to right in the picture. The wind has picked up and the crack is getting larger and larger by the minute. We can also see ice piling up on the shore across the lake.

We might be making a Easter Day paddle up the N Kawishiwi River on Sunday - that would be a first!