They harvest ice so that in the summer, guests of Rockywold-Deephaven Camps can cool their water, soda and beer bottles – not in refrigerators, but in antique iceboxes.
It’s one of only a handful of places in the country practicing the ritual for commercial purposes.
Sawing through the ice is hard work, but the families who come to holiday here don’t like to see change, they come because it’s simple and quiet.Back in the 1960s the camp tried to introduce refrigerators, but the idea wasn’t welcomed by the guests.
John Jurczynski, the co-general manager of Rockywold-Deephaven Camps for the 29 years, now oversees the ice harvest.
“We’re having our annual ice harvest. It’s been going on since 1897 when the camps were founded. We harvest about 200 tons of ice. Three hundred – 3,600 blocks and two different ice houses. We cut in the fields here – load the ice blocks up on that ramp. A truck will back up to the ramp, and we’ll keep loading trucks on this end. They’ll bring them to the ice houses and unload there, and once we get to about 200 tons of ice, we use that ice – we store it there until the summer, and during the summer months, we deliver in wheelbarrows the ice blocks, the old-fashioned ice boxes, and that’s what our guests use for refrigeration. We have central dining, so they eat in dining halls, but they keep their beverages and snacks cool in the old-fashioned ice boxes,” says Jurczynski
Workers use a contraption called an ice saw, this is a sledge with a huge blade mounted on it.
The 16-inch-by-19-inch chunks weigh as much as 120 pounds.
The blocks are pried loose with the help of chain saws and a line of workers with ice pikes float them along a chute.
They are then pushed up a ramp and into a truck for a trip to the storage facilities.Jurczynski explains: “They set up everything yesterday with the ramp. Today we cut out the chute, and the big saw you see there cuts out 16- by 19-inch blocks. It doesn’t cut all the way through. We leave about an inch – inch and a half. So, when we’re ready to take the blocks out, we just pry them apart gently and then float the blocks down this channel to the bottom of the ramp where I usually am the ‘hooker.’ We grab this hook, you grab five blocks of ice at a time, and a winch helps me push the five blocks up, slides in the top of the ramp and into the back of the truck.”
Maintenance worker Jon Spence says: “You know families have been coming here for a hundred years – the same family, and they want to have the same ice that their grandfather had in their icebox, or their great-grandfather.”
The camp still has the sort of iceboxes which would have been used by previous generations of families.
Spence enjoys the history and tradition of the event.
“Before this happens every year, I watch every video I can find on, or movie from back in the day. That’s kind of what inspired me to wear the top hat today, because in all those movies they’re all wearing top hats and long coats. I couldn’t find a long coat, or I’d be wearing a long coat today too,” he says.
When it’s all done, the group collects as many as 3,600 blocks of ice.
Volunteer Jack Sengstaken is clearly having fun.
“So far we’re only a few hours in, but it’s been absolutely wonderful. I mean, it’s just really cool to be part of a tradition that’s been going on for so long and on a lake that I love dearly, and it’s very cool to get kind of go back in time a little bit,” says Sengstaken.
Another volunteer is retired teacher Jane Kellogg.
Kellogg’s father visited the resort as a boy and she used to bring her elementary school students out here to watch the harvest.
