Kevin Fox thought spring temperatures that had temporarily kept the cold out of southeastern Ontario meant a good day for ice fishing, a popular winter pastime in the region.
After changing locations because the wind and ice “didn’t feel right” and the fish weren’t biting near shore, he and a friend joined nearly two dozen others on a sheet of ice on Lake Huron. They followed the familiar routine of anyone spending a day on the ice: They drilled holes, dropped their lines, and waited.
However, less than four hours after venturing onto the frozen lake, disaster struck. Anglers, including Fox, noticed it moving, imperceptibly slow, but slow enough to capture it on their electronic devices.
Unusually warm weather and strong winds helped break a large chunk of ice off the shores of Georgian Bay, stranding 23 people, including families, and prompting a dramatic rescue.
Despite strong winds, Ontario police were able to send two helicopters and an air ambulance to recover the stranded fishermen on Sunday in an operation that lasted two hours.
Fox wrote on Facebook that the group decided to run to the side of the bay in an attempt to escape back to land. But they soon realized that the ice had already separated from the shore in that place. In another section they found the same result: the ice had broken away from the ground.
As chasms replaced cracks in the ice, fear set in, survivors recalled.
“I started shouting: The ice is breaking up. The ice is breaking up,” Alfie How, one of the fishermen, told the Sun Times, a local newspaper.
Three members of the group tried to run to shore, but the ice around them broke into smaller pieces, leaving them stranded in open water.
“That’s when the reality of the situation set in. We heard that due to the (strong) winds at one point they couldn’t send a boat or helicopter. We honestly thought we were doomed,” he wrote.
“Some of the guys started making final phone calls to their families. It’s something I’ll never forget: watching grown men cry as they say goodbye to the people they love.”
While some of the stranded fishermen were wearing flotation suits, they knew the icy waters would overwhelm them within minutes.
Finally the helicopters arrived, first lifting the three off a small patch of ice and then transporting the other stranded people back to shore.
Fox says he and others took necessary precautions to avoid a catastrophic outcome by monitoring ice, winds and temperatures.
But police say warm weather has notoriously unpredictable effects on ice, especially on large bodies of water.
“We’re really encouraging people here in our area to stay off the ice. Stay off the edges of the waterways,” Constable Craig Soldan of the Huron County Provincial Police in Ontario told the Canadian Press.
“That includes rivers, ponds, any type of body of water where there are ice shelves that are breaking up.”
Soldan said the detachment has a motto: “No ice is safe ice.”
