An ice floe was detached from the seaside of Upper Red Lake in Beltrami County, Minnesota, Friday, stranding the 122 fishermen on top of it — until they were recovered.
The mass split off at 4:57 p.m., creating a gulf of 30 feet of open water between the floe and the southeastern shore of Upper Red Lake, the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office said in a release on Facebook.
Emergency responders were dispatched. In the interim, bystanders tried their own rescues via canoe. Those extractions failed, and four people fell into the water before climbing on the massive floe to warm up in a shelter, the sheriff’s office wrote.
The emergency responders rescued those four people from the floe at 6:40 p.m. By 7:37 p.m., all 122 stranded ice anglers were back on shore.
No injuries were reported, the sheriff’s office said.
Ice conditions remain poor across Minnesota due to rain and warm weather, the state Department of Natural Resources said in a Thursday release. Between Dec. 17 and Thursday, three other anglers were rescued on Upper Red Lake.
“Most years, the ice would be thick enough by now for vehicles and wheelhouses, and we’d be seeing a steady procession of them heading north. But this year isn’t ‘most years,’ and the ice is changing constantly,” Beltrami County Sheriff Jason Riggs said in the DNR release.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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