Beautiful morning -8c and calm,made a trip to Bare Point for supplies. The ice in the picture was 1/4" thick,sounded like glass breaking when we drove through it. The picture was taken 08:30 am. looking North towards French Narrows.The ice was spotty like this all the way to Queer Island,then no ice till Hades-Through the Hades the ice was 3/8"thick,then clear all the way to Bare Point where the docks there had 1/4". We hit a high of +1c and on our return @ 14:00 never saw any ice till we tried to go into Moore Bay to the old Lodge for a visit,Here the ice was getting thicker the further East we traveled,The ice was 3" thick and the boat rode up on top and just sat there. Not wanting to get stuck we back tracked out and drove around through Andrew Bay and came in from the back side,no sign of ice this way.I still think we can boat into next week but just in case we brought in enough supplies till we can snowmobile out.Have not seen or heard a boat around here in over a week,also had a huge wolf walk through the yard yesterday

Laurenson Lake by the jail froze yesterday,as a rule we freeze 14 days later. Moore Bay had a skin of ice from the West entrance to the old Lodge,we had a dusting of snow to make the ice white.
Forecast is for mild temperatures mid week with 25 km winds so that should break up a lot of the ice as it is only 1/4" thick.

Fall Report

We have 1" of fresh snow on the ground,finally getting a little sun shine. The North wind is blowing and temps are dropping.Woke up to -11 and its now -14c
Lake temp on Nov. 04th was 8c. Temp on Nov.19th is 1.5c. My first guess was freeze up Dec.08th but I now think that may be too late.Moving the date forward to Dec.04th.
Yesterday I went to Town( saw a loon) in open boat-strong East wind blowing and each time the bow went down in a wave the wind caught the spray and blew it back over the boat, by the time I got to the landing the inside of the boat and me had a 1/4" coating of ice.
Monday will be 2nd last trip to town for supplies,then sometime around Dec.01 for the last trip of fresh produce etc.. Then batten down the hatches till we can snowmobile out around Dec. 15.

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Rick Jackson's Post

ice is gone...

one the afternoon of may 6th the ice left bigstone bay
in the morning of the 6th the ice disappeared on the east track past Bunn Island, and the first boat went by an hour later.

This morning the ice is gone South and West of here.

2011 boating season

Today we boated from French Narrows to Bare Point,on our trip into town the Hades and back side of Scotty's were plugged with ice. We had to go around Scotty's on West side(Manitou) and straight into Bare Point. We had to push through a couple hundred yards of mushy ice in Bald Indian Bay.
On our trip home the we left Bare Point and travelled through Rocky Narrows and down the back side of Scotty's(East side)There was some ice to push through but again mushy.
Anyone boating from Keewatin/Kenora/Bare Point area to there camps on the North side of the Barrier Islands should have no problem. The Main track to Tranquil is also open.
Bigstone however is still ice covered, I thought it may be gone late in day on 6th. but Terry Lunny from Scotty's Island says 50/50 chance.
We will not be boating till 8th but if we hear of any change will post it.

boat ride

Took this picture on 27th ,the Square Day marker is @ Bald Island looking West,Queer Island would be just around the corner to the right.
Yesterday afternoon we went back out in the boat and made it around our Island and all the way to Hall' Gate @ South entrance to Hades.
We had to push through some black mushy ice(6" thick and feels like a "slurpee"
Still solid ice West side of Queer Island and entrances to Andrew Bay and Moore Bay still have ice.Forecast for us this weekend is -4c and 2cm of the white stuff!!!
Good thing is the winds are supposed to be @ 30kms.Still predicting Bare Point by 6th