Lookback #2
“The Ice Kings of Lake Champlain”
The Story on ESPNoutdoors ran…
…in early March of 2007, altho I think I actually did the story at the end of February that year and it ran a couple of days later. It was the 2nd “Inside the Outside” story I ever did.
And it was COLD!!!
Here we go…
That’s Lake Champlain…frozed!
And I’m standing on it, don’t necessarily want to be standing on it, but I am and I’m about a half mile out of Port Henry…in fact in just 6 months I will once again be on this water, this time though in a Bass boat with James Niggemeyer in my 1st ever Elite gig, but, you know, back to standing on water.
That’s Michele who used to work at the Kings Inn…
…but also sort of doubled as my “ice observer.” I had called the big Dept of Weather with a simple question, “Can you tell me what day Lake Champlain will freeze up solid like…um, please.” They either couldn’t or wouldn’t so I somehow got Michele, who could see the lake from her job, look out the window everyday to see if Lake Champlain was Frozed.
A little behind the scenes side info here that didn’t make the story since it was before ESPN had grown real big balls yet…
…this was the room of The Kings Inn, that ESPN Travel booked for me for a couple of nights, quaint turn of the century type of place…
…It was right at the top of the these main stairs…
…Michele told me you just go up the stairs and turn left, first room on the right. Cool I thought, no big deal.
This was the bar I was sitting at when michele explained where my room was while also a few minutes later telling me that…
…I’d be the only one staying in the place that night, and she gave me the keys to lock up after everyone left and THEN she says as we are standing looking at the stairs: “These are the stairs where my young daughter keeps saying she see’s a lady come down the staircase who ‘don’t got no feet.’ Ha sort of gliding down you know.” I left the next morning, ESPN Travel found me a hotel. True story! Yep.
So after calling my “ice observer” every other day for a month and a half…
…I get a phone call and all I hear is exactly this:
“We got Ice,” and with that I’m on my way to Lake Champlain to meet, as they are known locally: The Ice Kings. Wait, what…Champ! An underwater bigfoot…
“Welcome to Bryantsville!”
All I see is snow, and some square dots midway between the snow I’m standing on and the snow possibly at the end of the Earth (I put that in to make the flat-earthers go nuts).
“Bryantsville, I thought this was Port Something-or-other, where is Bryantsville.”
“Right there, out there on the lake.”
The dude dressed all in black is pointing to the line of square dots, “‘dems mine I have 27 of those out there.”
“Those what.”
“Ice shanties, come on I’ll give you a lift out to Bryantsville.”
“Oh…”
“…Kay.”
Those two words pretty much begin every adventure/story I’ve ever done.”
No adventure though involved standing on a lake.
Until now.
So I climb aboard what can only be called Uber-on-Ice…
…2 years before Uber-on-roads was even thought of
And head to What-ever-Ville…
…which has a bunch of brightly colored Ice Shanties and…
…this.
I was told it’s an RVanty. I just shook my head in the polite but universal symbol for “ho-boy.”
Also saw this…
…which makes me think whoever is in that shanty has no problem right now social distancing. Just saying.
“Okay, you’re here…”
“Where, is here where I am supposedly at.”
“Bryantsville, Lake Champlain, New York.”
Forgot the ice shanties were a Ville. “Ok, so where is Lake Champlain…”
“Look down at your feet.”
“Huh…” and then I did and this is exactly what I saw…
“That there what you is standing on that’s Lake Champlain.”
“Oh.”
“You on the West Bank of the East Channel about a mile out on the lake, you are.”
“Oh,” I haven’t moved an inch.
“You about 60, maybe 80 feet above the bottom of the lake right there where you are standing.”
“Oh.”
“Watch out, move over a bit,” and then he grabs my arm and “helps” me move “don’t want you to get runned over.”
“Oh,” and when I look back at where I was standing a big arse Snowplow Truck cruises by…I mean big like a county snowplow. I just stand motionless watching them plow a lake.
“Good, glad he’s out here, he’s making the streets so everyone can go and get their spot on their own street.”
“Oh.”
The Ice Kings of Lake Champlain
To be honest…
…I don’t remember if these guys are the actual “Ice Kings" or if they are the “Ice Dukes,” or possibly the “Ice Princes” but they were in the closest ice shanty with the door open and they looked friendly as I sort of gingerly shuffled their way.
So these “shanties” are actually like little homes if in fact you built a little home on an iceberg or something. This one had…
…a refrigerator other than you know, just the outside, had a thing you could cook on, a couple had TV’s and stereo systems…
Many looked sort of like this…
…I was told, I think, this one is a “four holer.”
Um…
…yep. Make that a 5-holer.
“Hey ESPN-guy you looking for the Lord of the Lake…”
In more ways than one…”Um, yes.”
“Two shanties down, he’s waiting for you.’
“OH.”
“You the ESPN-guy.”
“Yes, um, hmm…”
“You don’t have to call me Lord…Jim will do fine.”
And so for an hour or two, maybe longer…
…more I sit with Jim in a 12-holer, him in HIS spot by the open window, next to a gas stove, and we talk about fish…
“Used to be we’d catch these Smelt, one pounders, now…
…they usually 4-6 ounces.” It is still very early morning and in his “smelt bucket he’s “got me maybe 10-15 pounds, doing ok.”
The pole he is fishing with today he made himself…
…15 years ago. “My other poles over there I made them when I was in High School, 1955 or ‘56, still use them, will this afternoon.”
When my several thousand bosses at ESPN asked me how long I would be on the story I told them…
…until 5 minutes before my toes freeze.
By about noon the toes were almost all frozed up and so I said goodbye to the Lord of the Lake and the Ice Kings and very very slowly walked across Lake Champlain to the nearest snow bank that looked like it was on land…and got off.
As I was driving away I stopped the car, got out and took this photo…
Under blue skies, on clear ice and with the red White and Blue Flag at Attention there sat…
…Bryantsville, West Bank, East Channel, Lake Champlain, New York. This photo I took for myself because I knew when I got back to the mothership that is ESPN I would be asked one question..
“So what was it like out there.”
And this is exactly how I answered my several thousand bosses who asked:
It was cold…
…there but…
…everyone I met was…
…warm to me!
If you would like to read my entire ESPN story about the Ice Kings and the Lord of The Lake click here
A big thanks even now some 13 years later to all those in the story who MADE the story possible.
At this point I was 2 stories into writing about Inside the Outside, both were about fishing and those who fish…and I was starting to get comfortable because of the people who I had met.
You have to understand, for the past decade+ I was the investigative/crime producer at ESPN…most of the people I had to deal with in stories were jerks, and we had caught them doing some jerky things…they wanted nothing to do with me.
But here, no one ran away from me, no one refused to talk to me, no one threatened me.
This Inside the Outside gig, might not suck after all…
Next Week…
“You wanna go fly fishing in New Brunswick Canada.”
I did…and so comes now LookBack #3: “The Fly Boys”