Ice Fishing in Lake Athabasca

By Lena MacDonald

The trees around the lake huddled together, the biting cold eclipsing any warmth from the sunlight glinting off the frozen surface. Through the window of the lodge, there was complete stillness. I often watched inquisitive squirrels and grunting moose from my chair, but they were conspicuous in their absence. Even the gently rippled ice was moving at too glacial a speed to be visible to my tired, leaden eyes. Sitting indoors was no fun for an old sea dog like me, more used to riding wild ocean waves than eschewing adventure. It was time to go.

Wrapped up warm against the weather, I stepped tentatively out onto the ice, my pack heavy against my spine. Raw skin prickled under microscopic snowflakes that whirled about in a sparkling blur. I didn’t dare go as far as the middle—the limnetic zone—where the ice would be at its thinnest and most dangerous. The ice was always fishing for men. I paused a third of the way out from the shore, testing the firmness of the freeze, and quickly set up my shanty, canvas chair, and rod. An automatic process after all these years.

Secured to my pack was an antique ice auger that had been my father’s. He was the true ice fishing expert, renowned in these parts for both his skill and his success. In comparison, I was nothing but an enthusiastic amateur: thirty years as captain of my own trawler couldn’t come close. Open-water fishing was too easy for him. I heard his voice, long gone from this world, telling me that with care, the auger would last even past my own lifetime. So, I treated it with reverence. It was also the only safe way to slice through the ice to the fish below. I kneeled down and prepared myself mentally.

The auger corkscrewed into the dense strata, my hands turning the handle clockwise cautiously, right hand over left, as rhythmic as a metronome. Round and round, nibbling downwards. With a wrenching motion, it broke through. I was jerked forward, my elbows slamming into the Baltic skin of the winter lake. A gush of gelid liquid spewed upwards, smelling of sludge and rot. I lay there, face framed by the freshly carved aperture, peering down into the crepuscular depths of the water. I exhaled slowly, issuing a silent prayer that the auger was still safely grasped in my gloved hands.

My bones ached from the sudden impact. A chill began to set in. I eased the auger out of the hole, placed it to one side, and sat back on my heels. Breathing slowly, I removed my gloves, peeling them gingerly from my fingers. Hands cupped to my face, warm exhalations invited the circulation to return until my digits were pink and no longer stiff. I rubbed my face vigorously, removing both the threat of frostbite on my nose and tiny icicles from my eyelashes.

Then the sound that every ice fisher dreads. A noise that, as my father had told me so many times, could mean death to a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A sharp snap, followed by deep groan. The ice crackled below me. I settled slowly onto my stomach, limbs outstretched, trying—despite the bitter cold—to spread my weight evenly across the sheer film. A hairline fracture appeared, creeping towards me like a predator seeking a fresh kill. Other fissures followed, radiating out from the fresh void in the ice. I slithered in the direction of the shore, my fingers reaching for the refuge of solid ground, inch by tantalizing inch. The cracks in the ice followed me, chaperones on either side, before surging in front and uniting as one. I felt the ice heave, looming up in front of me, my weight off-center. The water began nipping at my toes, and then… the world fell away before me.

Gravity pulled me down the sloping ice, my prone form punching through the water and under the surface. Suspended and dazed, inhabiting a still and silent aquatic realm, I gazed in disbelief. The creeping chill soaked into my clothes. The sound of blood rushing in my head became a painful drumbeat, urging me to act—quickly!—before it was too late.

My body convulsed, goosebumps rising across my skin. Teeth chattered at a violent rate, trying to cleave my tongue in two. Limbs growing heavier, my sodden rain bibs and woolen thermals iron anchors, determined to reach the bottom. Kicking hard against their descent was futile resistance. I gasped for air, only to feel the piercing agony of frigid water entering my lungs. Tiny bubbles, all that was left of my breath, escaped my nostrils and streamed away in a bid for freedom from this cerulean world with its frosted roof. Even their gossamer trails had disappeared from view now, returning to the world above. They left me behind.

A solitary fish appeared in my field of view, swimming at funeral pace. It halted briefly, as if questioning why I was there, before proceeding on its way. Sinking further, I was consumed by gloom. My own private doldrums. The frigid torpor was almost gone: heart becalmed, body adrift. My feet landed on the lakebed first, heels digging into the dirt. Yellow Perch, I thought as I tilted backwards, relaxing onto the sandy chaise longue of the lakebed, a rock for a pillow.

As the shadows closed in, I stared upwards, unable even to blink. My world began to blur and darken, illuminated by the spotlight of a perfectly circular moon and scintillating stars twinkling through the rime-decorated glass ceiling. I felt safe. A short sleep would do me a world of good. If only that fish would stop swimming by.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lena MacDonald has been a storyteller and writer since childhood. She is an avid reader, preferring fiction, and particularly enjoys murder mysteries and adventure stories. Lena discovered flash fiction in August 2020 and is delighted to be publishing her first short story with Havok! Originally from South Wales, Lena now lives in Gloucestershire with her husband and dog, where she is writing her first novel.

---

Twitter