It may be ice-fishing season, but here in Manitoba it’s a season quite unlike any other.
A slow freezing process for bodies of water across the province, from Lake Winnipeg to even the Red River, has anglers proceeding with caution. Like for Eric Labaupa, who said that with a warmer winter this season, he’s in “unchartered territory.”
“You’re not driving vehicles everywhere you want to go like you would in the middle of January. But people are ice fishing right now, just a little more careful at the moment, because ice fishing conditions aren’t what they normally are.”
To Labaupa, ice conditions this January are similar to what you would see in November.
“Normally, on Lake Winnipeg, you could drive coast-to-coast. You could go from Winnipeg Beach to Grand Beach if you wanted to. At this moment you can’t, (since) the middle isn’t as thick as it normally is,” he said. He added that even with the colder weather in the forecast, people should be careful.
West Hawk Lake, located in the Whiteshell Provincial Park, usually freezes over late due to its depth of more than 370 feet. Shaun Harbottle’s family has been recording the lake’s freeze-up date since the late 1950s. The latest, he said, was Jan. 10, 2012.
He said he thinks the record could be close to being broken this year.
“This year… we had that cooler weather, but it was minus two, minus three. The lake cooled down very slowly. It has iced over a little bit in the last week or so, but the winds have been pretty heavy out of the south and the north, and they’ve taken the ice out every time,” said Harbottle.
“You think you’ve got it figured out and then you don’t. Mother Nature is kind of funny that way.”
This week, the province warned of rising water levels along the Red River, north of Emerson. Manitoba’s Hydrologic Forecast Centre said levels have increased by about five feet near the community and are expected to rise closer to Winnipeg next week.
In an earlier interview with Global News, Dave Carlson, reeve of the municipality of Emerson-Franklin, said residents should not go on or near the ice on the river, citing the unpredictability of how water conditions.
Because of the provincial warning, Labaupa said he was forced to move a tournament planned on the river for mid-January to Lake Winnipeg instead.
— with files from Global’s Marney Blunt.
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