The Hardest Part of Skating is the Ice . . .

As a child I loved these bright, cold, crisp days. They meant the ice would be especially fast at the neighborhood rink.

Every winter I would wait impatiently for the rink to be ready. For the ice to be thick enough, smooth enough to skate on.

I would take my skates down to get sharpened in preparation. Once home they would be glossed over with a new coat of Kiwi White Polish. New laces were always the finishing touch.

My friends and I often went skating after school when the rink was virtually empty. Lots of room for flying along, cracking the whip and practicing spins and fancy stops. I spun and flew until it was dark and time to go home for supper.



On sunny Saturday's the rink was always filled with laughter and the ring of steel skates. Little ones on double blades just learning to balance. Teenage boys joking and chasing one another. Couples, skating rhythmically side-to-side, arms linked, trying to avoid the boys who would flash by nearly knocking everyone down in their wake.

I tended to avoid the warm-up hut. Similar in style to a sauna it had rows of elevated benches and a central firepit. It smelled of wet wool, wood smoke, spilt cocoa and sweat.

The exhilaration of flying along, the laughter, rosy cheeks and hot cocoa sipped while sitting in a rink-side snowbank are childhood memories stored away among treasured things.

Ode' to an Island Beater . . .

Road? You don't need no stinkin' road . . .

I learned to drive on the ice - in a rusty old stationwagon that had seen better days.

It's how I learned to drive. It's how everyone I knew learned to drive growing up U.P. North.


On the ice there's no traffic, no trees and no distractions.

Unless you count friends cheering you on from the backseat and daring you to see how many *donuts* you can pull off.

But ice driving does have it's limitations. Sometimes the ice doesn't always cooperate . . .

"It takes 8,460 bolts to assemble an automobile, and one nut to scatter it all over the road." ~Author Unknown

Sweet Treats and More . . .

You scream, I scream,


We all scream for Tee Pee Ice Cream!



No ice cream flavor in a box or bucket can ever compare with the taste of a Tee Pee ice cream cone after a long, lazy summer day on Drummond Island!

The Tee Pee 29905 E Channel Rd  Drummond Island MI 49726

Phone: 906-493-5248

CLOSED for the SEASON :(

"Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone."

~Jim Fiebig

Garbage Bag Blues . . .

Takin' out the garbage can be such a drag

There's some crusty old gristle

hanging off a dish rag

That's sittin' right on top by some moldy old beans

If I hadn’t mixed it together in the wrong color bag

Takin’ out the garbage wouldn’t be such a drag.

I’m needin’ a solution to this

Wrong bag pollution

What can I do?

I am garbage bag blue

Hold it!

I know it!

I can swing by Wazz’s as I head to the dock

They have grey Waste Management bags in stock!

Dealin' with the garbage is a terrible task

But always be sure to do right by your trash

No black, no white, no green,

Only grey Waste Management bags can be seen!*

*Note: When tossing your trash on Drummond Island be sure to get an official grey Waste Management bag first. If you toss any other bag into one of the dumpsters at Wazz's the Garbage Police are sure to track you down and administer the appropriate fine. 

Then you too will be singing the Garbage Bag Blues . . .

Keeping the St. Mary's Ice Free

Riding the Drummond Island ferry in the winter is an experience unlike any other. This week's trip was highlighted by two helicoptors flying low overhead - apparently scouting for the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw as she cleared ice from the upper St. Mary's River.

If you are as curious as I am and want to learn more about the Icebreaker Mackinaw then this video is for you! It can be purchased by going to the following link:

Icebreaker Mackinaw

Kids, Curiosity and Feathered Friends . . .

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” - Maya Angelou

The beauty of birding on Drummond Island is that it is a well-defined space, yet the wealth of the northern avian world is apt to be living there. What you don’t find in winter, moves in to breed during the summer. Even more birding possibilities migrate through, both spring and fall. What better place to introduce a child to the wonders of the birding world?

A child’s constant need for knowledge and facts can be satisfied instantly by a trip into the woods or neighboring open lands to observe the birdlife. Why do birds sing? How do they fly? Where do they go in winter? Why are their eggs speckled or blue?

Bird names, songs, behavior, and relationship to the rest of nature – all of these facts add up to a knowledge base that logically ties into history, geography, art and science. These days, children have less time to stop, look and listen; birding offers a wonderful opportunity to take part in these simple pleasures.

For kids, birds are especially fascinating because they can fly! Avid model airplane builders and fans of flight will be fascinated with the aerodynamics of wing shape and speed. This particular trait is obvious in birds of prey because they are so large and visible as they cruise the updrafts and scout their prey from high above the ground. For a child, this is an astonishing feat of nature.

The next time you head to Drummond make sure you take along a pair of binoculars and a birding guide - you never know what you will find!

Aero Sleighs on Drummond Island . . .

as told by George A. Litchard

To give you a better idea of how our winter fun worked, it went like this: We carried two of three hounds with us and we would circle one of the smaller islands (in Potagannissing Bay) and look for fresh coyote tracks. (Coyotes frequently travel over the ice) Finding tracks, we would turn the hounds loose and run the sleighs out about half a mile offshore (usually 2 or 3 sleighs), shut down the engines and wait for the hounds to drive the coyotes out onto the ice.

We then chased down the coyotes in the sleighs and shot them. The real fun was the waiting. Frequently it was 20 to 40 degrees below zero with a nice gentle breeze out of the north at about 40 knots. (We didn't know about "chill factors" then. If we had, we probably would have all frozen to death.) After a refreshing wait of half an hour to an hour, you beat your brittle little frozen body some more by launching yourselves across rough ice at speeds approaching Mach-1. No, the sleighs did not have heaters, and frostbite was something that only a sissy got.

The fact that we were actually killing quite a few coyotes (for which the state paid bounty) and, the general population was still of the opinion that all coyotes, wolves, foxes, and birds of prey should be exterminated by whatever means necessary, must have kept the Department of Conservation from locking everybody up when this stuff was published all over the country. After I became a Conservation Officer, I learned that they, the Conservation Department, had quite a "file" on me, as well as on our particular idea of winter sports. I was frequently reminded of it, too.

The Wing Aero Sleigh was designed & built by Blain Wing in St. Ignace, Michigan in the 1940s

More photos of these amazing machines can be found at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/litchard/tags/aerosleigh/