We marked the runway with 3-foot stakes with black trash bags tied to the top during the fall.  They helped make our frozen airstrip more visible.  At the beginning of breakup, the stakes were stuck in the deep ice.  A couple of weeks into our warmer weather, Shon went out and picked up the ones he could.  He got a little nervous about the condition of the ice on the east end, so those markers remained.  Saturday morning Shon and I decided we needed to try to get the remaining stakes.     

We have been watching the lake lose its snow and ice slowly over the last five weeks, watching the markers tip over and fall as the ice finally gave way.  About a week ago, we took the canoe out for the first time, but could only paddle around the west end of the lake.  Now that over half of the lake was ice-free, and much of what was left looked rotten in places, we thought we might be able to navigate to the runway stakes that were floating along the still-frozen runway.

It has taken us about four years to travel in the canoe without arguing over our paddling, our lack of paddling, paddling on the wrong side, not paddling hard enough.  We have developed a system over the years that seems to be working, finally.  I sit in the front of the canoe, Shon in the back.  I paddle from the right side.  I can’t even think about paddling from the left side because it messes everything up.  Shon steers from the back and paddles from either side, sometimes using the paddle as a rudder. 

The challenge of maneuvering through the ice tested our skills like never before.  We had to communicate like a team, discussing where the floating ice looked like we might be able to get through.  We identified a course of action, then paddled like never before to try to break through.  It was reminiscent of the game “Red Rover” we played as children.

Sometimes we were successful, other times we found my end of the canoe on top of an iceberg, with Shon’s end still in the water, which wasn’t nearly as painful as being unsuccessful at “Red Rover” as a nine-year-old.  We tried the scoot method, trying to shift the canoe enough to go up and over.  That never seemed to work.  I had to dig my paddle into the ice and push backward, freeing the canoe.  When we were both floating, we had to find another passage.  One time we hit a section of ice and tipped the boat a bit to one side, eliciting blood-curdling shrieks and screams from me.  Shon said nothing until we had righted ourselves.  Then he calmly stated, “That would have been really cold.”

We finally found our way through the maze of ice to the edge of the frozen runway to retrieve the floating runway markers.  We paddled home, proud of ourselves. By the end of the day, the lake was free of ice. If we had just waited a bit, gathering our markers would not have been as challenging, but not nearly as fun!