Ice fishing: democracy on a frozen lake

By John Freivalds

Published-1/18/20

Duluth News Tribune

Whenever my warmer-climate friends come see me in the dead of winter and look out at the many lakes all profusely dotted with motley collections of tents, shacks, and trailers of various descriptions and pedigrees, I wonder what their first thoughts are.

“Is this a new and innovative way for Minnesota to deal with its homeless crisis?”

“Is this a refugee camp on an ice cube?”

Neither. This is Minnesotans having fun and surviving and getting out in winter. I live across from Lake Minnetonka, one of Minnesota's most "fashionable," if not snooty, areas — in certain sections. But away from urban areas, one writer pondered, “Except for the occasional drone of an auger or snowmobile, the only sound out there is the wind in the trees and the sounds of the birds. If you've never experienced that kind of silence, you should give yourself a chance sometime."

This winter, I stopped a couple of guys loading up their ice fishing gear and asked: "Did you catch anything." It was -8 degrees with gray skies and a blowing wind. One grisly guy said, "Yep," and told me that they had spent the night out on the lake in a six-by-six-foot plywood windless shack, had a heater going (80 degrees!), and had caught one 13-inch crappie. Just one! 

"We had a ball," he said. OK, they drank a lot of beer, to be sure. 

He said he would mount his fish to match a 13-inch one at his home already hung.

But I don't get it. You can go to Costco and get fish sticks that will brown up in a minute!

By the look of this fellow's beyond-dented pickup, he was a person of modest means. But by going ice fishing out on the lake, you breathe fresh air, look at the stars, and have some camaraderie with others next to you. 

There is one spot on Lafayette Bay that has a shoal/reef where fish gather, and this is where the guys "pitch their tents." The grisly guy invited me to come out the next time. So I did.

It was instant camaraderie: the guys — and gals — of all different shapes, sizes, and ages were just hanging out in a community of tents, shacks, and trailers having a love-in and drinking a lot of beer, which greased the wheels, of course.

Gary Sankary, writing in MinnPost, noted that, "Ice fishing is a great equalizer amongst fishermen. In the summer the line between haves and have-nots is defined by a boat. If you have a boat, you are a fisherman. If you don't, you're relegated to the shoreline. … It sucks. For a few short months all the hot spots on a lake are open to everyone. It's angling democracy at its best." 

The last time I went out, a vibrant young female and companion and two yuppie teenagers in their father's Cadillac went out to join the "banter" in the frozen shanty town.

According to the Department of Natural Resources, there are 1.5 million license-holding anglers in Minnesota. About 10% head back to the lakes once they freeze. Merchants love this demographic for they can sell stuff, lots of it. To wit, I’ve noticed ice hard water bibs, ice classic tip ups, pack baskets, jiggling ice fishing rods and reels, line grabbers, fishing lines of various weights, fish grabbers, aluminum pliers, sinkers, ice-fishing electronics, ice augers, and skimmers. And did I forget the propane tank to cook the fish and warm the shack, tent, or trailer? No surprise to the DNR that "hot thermal injuries" (otherwise known as “burns” to us common folk) are the fourth-most-common ice-fishing injury.

But the most common ice fishing stuff I saw were T-shirts. I liked the one that said: "When hell freezes over, I'll ice fish there, too."

Eco Tourism Today in Minnesota: Back to the Future (well sort of)

By John Freivalds

Published 12/13/2019

Duluth News Tribune

It was 1989, and I left Minnesota to return to Latvia with 26 other American Latvian businessmen right before our native land was to break free from the Soviet Union. We wanted the country to turn to the West and bring ideas and money to make that happen. I met a landowner who wanted to develop tourism and asked him a series of questions: Does your land have any interesting features? Is it on a road? Did anything historical happen there? Does it have running water and electricity? Is it on the way to someplace interesting? The answer was no to all my questions. This poor bewildered guy didn't have a chance. You needed "something" to attract the global tourist and be part of the modern money economy.

Freivalds: How Neville Chamberlain, Adolf Hitler, Cicero and even Hans Christian Andersen all travelled the same road as Donald Trump

By John Freivalds

Published 11/8/2019

Roanoke Times, Roanoke, VA.

Freivalds runs an international communications firm in Lexington.

There is nothing new in human nature. We are much the same as the characters in the Bible, the tyrants of world wars, or emperors in the streets of ancient Rome or chilly ports of Denmark. This all came together in a just out new book “Appeasement” by Tim Bouverie (Tim Duggan Books 2019). In it Bouverie points out that Neville Chamberlain, then prime minister of Great Britain, signed an armistice with Hitler’s Nazi Germany hoping for “peace in our time.” This armistice allowed Hitler to cut up Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain believed that this would be Hitler’s last land grab.