Ice Harvesting

• That yesterday's little seasonal industries still function to a small degree in the Copper Country can be seen by a visit to the lake front near the Foley Copper Products Wire mill. There, Arthur Larch, the well known Portage Lake natural refrigeration man, is cutting his 1954 ice harvest, a task he has been performing annually for the past 30 years.There is still a big demand for natural ice. It is used in the preservation of fish, in the packing of fish for shipment and in a generalized group of purposes that count up to almost two score.The product this year is about 16 inches in thickness and contains but a small layer of slush ice. The usual thickness in normal winters is approximately from 22 to 24 inches.Mr. Larch expects to cut about 1400 tons of cake ice. Each block will range in weight from 300 to 400 pounds. In cakes the number harvested will be approximately 10,000.The Dollar Bay man will not only cut for his own year's distribution route, but he will also harvest for concerns like the Chassell Fisheries, William Wood Fisheries at Copper Harbor, the Northern Co-Operative and the Giacoletto Tavern at Toivola.Mr. Larch has been preparing for his March ice harvest since the ice was five inches thick Jan. 10 I had to baby it this year," he said yesterday, "because we had a mild winter."During alternate periods he has been scraping the snow off the surface so that the section in which he expected to do his harvesting would not be insulated against freezing. That is the reason the ice on his plot is so much thicker than further out in the channel where currents and snow have narrowed the thickness down to as low as eight to 10 inches.Harvester Larch has been living in Dollar Bay for the past 51 years. He was born in Hancock. The family lived there at the time the father was employed at the old Detroit and Lake Superior Smelting Co. at its site east of the bridge. After the Quincy smelter began operating in 1898 and the Tamarack and Osceola and Calumet and Hecla smelters began stepping up production following the turn of the century, the elder Larch could easily see that it wouldn't be long before the old furnaces of the Lake Superior would be inadequate for further smelting processes. So he changed his employment from Ripley to Dollar Bay.After a short time at the smelter in the latter town he went into the fuel business. As a side line he carried on the harvesting and sale of ice. At that time electric refrigeration, as it is known today, was unknown. that being the case, the harvesting of ice was a big business.Son Arthur Larch started as a youngster in the ice business. He followed his father along on his routes and did practically every task requested in the harvesting side of the work.Of course, he does not do the cutting and loading, as it was done in the yesteryears. Then it was entirely a horse power job. Now it's horsepower but in a different manner. He cuts the ice to a certain depth with a circular saw powered by a gasoline engine. After it is well marked a man with a crosscut type saw appears on the job and proceeds along the cut lines easing it out into the water by means of the complete cut from surface to water.One time when he did all his cutting by horse and man power, he had a team slip through the ice and into the water. He and his men were able to get one horse out, but the other one sank to the bottom. He relates quite a number of experiences in the early days but averages them all up by saying, "Oh, there's not much money in cutting ice, but I make a living from it and that's that." He charges a quarter for a 300 - 400 pound cake provided the customer comes to where the ice is being harvested and takes it away with his truck. "And if anybody can harvest ice under that price he is welcome to try it," he adds.All Larch ice will be harvested within a 10 day period, that is provided nothing unusual turns up. When the cutting and loading is at peak proportio"
4/16/2009 10:59:33 AM by Christine Holland, Archives

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