Speaker 1: Welcome to Macina Island Moments, hosted by lifelong islander Jason
Speaker 1: saint Onge. Through conversations and interviews with follow island locals
Speaker 1: and residents, Jason will bring you the real stories and
Speaker 1: characters that to find life on the island. Whether you're
Speaker 1: a seasoned visitor, new to mcinna Island, or even an
Speaker 1: islander yourself, you'll be sure to learn firsthand about the
Speaker 1: island with Jason on MCN Island Moments.
Speaker 2: And welcome to another edition of the mcin Island Moments podcast,
Speaker 2: the only podcast brought to you from MCN Island by
Speaker 2: aid born and raised Mcina Islander folks. We're back recording again.
Speaker 2: We have another episode coming up for you, this one
Speaker 2: once again sponsored by our good friends at the Mustang
Speaker 2: Lounge America, Michigan's oldest tavern, the hub of the social
Speaker 2: climate on mac And Island, the Dead Winner. It's one
Speaker 2: of the one of two places to restaurant slash taverns
Speaker 2: that's open year round and we should appreciate that The
Speaker 2: Mustang Lounge on Aster Street the Locals Bar. So today
Speaker 2: I want to talk about something I generally I generally
Speaker 2: refrain from discussing we're going to talk about the ice bridge,
Speaker 2: and it's not something I want to talk about it,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to tell you why I don't like
Speaker 2: talking about it. But we're to the point now where
Speaker 2: something has to be set. There is so much misinformation
Speaker 2: being put out there, so much misinformation being spewed on
Speaker 2: social media, and now even the Detroit Free Press went
Speaker 2: there and put out an article on Friday that quite
Speaker 2: literally could have got people killed. And I said, it's
Speaker 2: time to do something. And the reason I try not
Speaker 2: to discuss it is because any information you give is
Speaker 2: old information because the ice changes so fast. And let
Speaker 2: me back up just a little second, and I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get too involved here today, mostly because, as
Speaker 2: you may or may not know, I'm in the middle
Speaker 2: of writing a book actually about the ice bridge, and
Speaker 2: I don't want it to be an audio book on
Speaker 2: a podcast. So you know, some of you may know
Speaker 2: that in the winter, some winters, the ice between mack
Speaker 2: And Island and Senegmas freeze is enough to allow for passage.
Speaker 2: And when I say freezes enough, sometimes it's just enough.
Speaker 2: The last two years, and if you want to count
Speaker 2: this year, the last three years, there hasn't been enough ice.
Speaker 2: The last two years, the boats ran all year, and
Speaker 2: this year there is some ice floating around, but the
Speaker 2: wind comes up and blows it away or some holes develop,
Speaker 2: and it just hasn't happened. And the reason we stay
Speaker 2: away from them. I run the Maclaland News and Views
Speaker 2: facebook page of ninety four thousand members. I think we
Speaker 2: do it what we call an ice bridge blackout. We
Speaker 2: just don't discuss it. And the reason is we're not
Speaker 2: trying to be gatekeepers here or clean the ice for us.
Speaker 2: What people don't understand is there's nothing you can say
Speaker 2: about the condition of the ice bridge and expect it
Speaker 2: to be true an hour later. So how can we
Speaker 2: possibly say, oh, the guys are crossing this morning, and
Speaker 2: have uninformed folks jump on in their trucks, haul their
Speaker 2: somemobiles up and say, well, we read this morning they
Speaker 2: were crossing, so we figured it fine. Because I'm going
Speaker 2: to tell you it's not like that. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 2: a few stories in this podcast to illustrate that as well.
Speaker 2: But what you have to know is that this three
Speaker 2: and a half to four miles where we cross, it
Speaker 2: is fluid, it is dynamic, and it is constantly moving.
Speaker 2: There is current there, tremendous current. The water is two
Speaker 2: hundred feet deep, the straits are always moving. It is
Speaker 2: not like an inland lake where once you see the
Speaker 2: first shanny go up, you know it's good to be on.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people can't understand that. I also
Speaker 2: want to make it explicitly clear because here's where a
Speaker 2: lot of misinformation has been coming from. The ice bridge
Speaker 2: or crossing the ice is not sanctioned, it's not endorsed,
Speaker 2: and it's not authorized by any entity, particularly not the
Speaker 2: City of macn Island and or its fire department, not
Speaker 2: this Antegna's fire department. Nobody is in charge of it.
Speaker 2: Nobody goes on record of saying, Okay, it's safe, it's
Speaker 2: good to go. That's not how it works. People. Just
Speaker 2: because you see people crossing it doesn't mean that, oh,
Speaker 2: it's safe. Oh. Some of the misinformation being spewed as
Speaker 2: oh the fire department checks it. No, why would the
Speaker 2: fire department go on record as of making the presumption
Speaker 2: that it's safe when it's not. So there's that, And now,
Speaker 2: like I said, I'm i to tell you a few
Speaker 2: stories that hopefully it will shed some light and maybe,
Speaker 2: in fact, have you checked yourselves before you try to
Speaker 2: get yourself in trouble up here? Someday that you don't
Speaker 2: need to. And I don't mean trouble with the law,
Speaker 2: I mean trouble with you. Maybe make an arrangement to
Speaker 2: meet the Lord here. Here's a good one for it.
Speaker 2: One time we needed to get over and get some supplies.
Speaker 2: It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. It was
Speaker 2: myself and Chummy Chummy's wasn't his wife yet, the page
Speaker 2: and the squirrel and the four of us we headed over.
Speaker 2: It had hit ace hardware and grab some stuff. Nobody
Speaker 2: likes to go by themselves if they don't have to.
Speaker 2: They certainly don't like to go after dark. But it
Speaker 2: was late February, maybe early March, as I recall, and
Speaker 2: the sun was getting higher in the sky and was
Speaker 2: in daylight a little bit later, and we picked up
Speaker 2: what we had to get from the hardware story He's hardware.
Speaker 2: And someone said, hey, let's run out to Timmy Lee's
Speaker 2: and grab quick beer before we go back. Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2: I have my car keys with me. My car's right
Speaker 2: over there. With piling the car, we'll head out to
Speaker 2: Timmy Lee's, and we just came off the ice. We
Speaker 2: sat down, ordered a beer. I so much as put
Speaker 2: that beer up to my lips, and my phone rang
Speaker 2: and I looked, and then the caller ID was s
Speaker 2: my Horn. Smile knows the late s my Horn Smile
Speaker 2: knew so much about the ice, spend so much time
Speaker 2: off there, knows what to look for, and knows what
Speaker 2: he's looking at. He called me. I said hello, Smile,
Speaker 2: and he said, Jay, it's breaking up. That's all he
Speaker 2: had to say. I didn't say where. I didn't say
Speaker 2: what do you mean. I didn't say, oh, come on now,
Speaker 2: A guy like Smile says she's breaking up. I said,
Speaker 2: we gotta go. Put put the beer down, never even
Speaker 2: finished it. Never he took a second drink, paid our tab,
Speaker 2: jumped in the car, went straight back, jumped on our snowbill,
Speaker 2: start heading back to mc and Island. The tree line
Speaker 2: that you follow now more on that. The second I
Speaker 2: noticed was no longer in a straight line. It was
Speaker 2: starting to make subtle zigzags. And nobody went out and
Speaker 2: moved those trees. Folks. The ice is moving, It's moving
Speaker 2: in different directions. And that was a perilous moment while
Speaker 2: we're clipping along, we're not We're not stopping the gag
Speaker 2: lollies as they say, no lolly gagging. And we get
Speaker 2: to the beach. We look back. We can tell that
Speaker 2: the trees are moving a bit. Jump on oursomobiles. We
Speaker 2: head up Forest Drive. We stop at my house for
Speaker 2: a quick second to drop our stuff off. No biggie.
Speaker 2: We went over to Sunset Rock to take a look.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say for the minute that phone call to
Speaker 2: the time we got to Sunset Rock was probably less
Speaker 2: than an hour. And we got up to Sunset Rock.
Speaker 2: It's on the western side of the island. We looked
Speaker 2: out and there was several hundred yards of ice was gone.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even windy. It was a breeze, but nothing
Speaker 2: to write home about it. Just the current had made
Speaker 2: up its mind. It started to move and it took
Speaker 2: some of the ice with us. It was just gone.
Speaker 2: Imagine that we stayed in in that tavern having a
Speaker 2: beer till after dark and then just headed across and
Speaker 2: we hadn't been giving the heads up. You often override
Speaker 2: your headlights on a snowmobill. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You're going faster than the headlights can see, and we
Speaker 2: very well likely could have ended up in the drink.
Speaker 2: That was the last crossing at the mac of the
Speaker 2: ice bridge that year. It was gone. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: it blew out. It just broke up and moved out.
Speaker 2: Is that a once in a lifetime story. Oh hell no.
Speaker 2: There's lots of them, and lots of the people here
Speaker 2: have those stories. Another good one I like to tell
Speaker 2: is and all these are going to be in the book,
Speaker 2: by the way, But a group of Stonemasons from Sinnaganas
Speaker 2: Windenburg Mason r Earin Windberg owns it now. They'd headed
Speaker 2: across headed back I don't know, two o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: a squall, really heavy like effects squall had come up,
Speaker 2: and they're just going to follow the trees and take
Speaker 2: it easy to get back to Saint Agnas. These guys
Speaker 2: have a lot of experience. Windberg has been in business,
Speaker 2: I don't know, twenty five years, and before that he
Speaker 2: worked for his dad for thirty years. You know, he's
Speaker 2: crossed the ice thousand times, probably from Saint Agnes. Somehow
Speaker 2: Windberg and his group of guys lost the trail. It
Speaker 2: happens when it's white out. You can't see it happens.
Speaker 2: They lost the trail, they pressed on, they saw some
Speaker 2: trees come through the you know, they saw the shore
Speaker 2: come through the snow. Oh, thank god, we made it.
Speaker 2: They thought they were up in the northern part of
Speaker 2: Saint Agnes called Evergreen Shores. And fact what they'd done
Speaker 2: is they, unbeknownst to them, made a huge U turn
Speaker 2: and it landed out by Devil's Kitchen, which is about
Speaker 2: two miles to the south where they left the island from.
Speaker 2: They were thankful, and I mean thankful to be alive.
Speaker 2: They didn't even go home that night. They went and
Speaker 2: got hotel rooms at the Pontiac and they stay ended
Speaker 2: up spend on the weekend. A last close call. I'm
Speaker 2: going to tell you it wasn't a close call. It
Speaker 2: resulted in the death childhood friend of mine named Bobby
Speaker 2: Roach stopped in the village in about six thirty, had
Speaker 2: his dinner and told everybody who was going to head
Speaker 2: to Saint Agnes, no big deal. People were crossing back
Speaker 2: and forth routinely, and near as we can tell, he
Speaker 2: got caught in the squall and got off the trail,
Speaker 2: and he has not been recovered and that was a
Speaker 2: real painful one to take. And unfortunately it's not the
Speaker 2: only time that's happened. Another one of my childhood friends
Speaker 2: was lost just a couple of years prior to that.
Speaker 2: He ended up going in the channel and was lost.
Speaker 2: And so when I tell you these things that that's
Speaker 2: not a safe place to be out there, it grinds
Speaker 2: my gears. When people say things like, oh, it's not
Speaker 2: my bucket list, Oh, I've always wanted to do it.
Speaker 2: To me, that sounds so stupid. That sounds like someone saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, I've always wanted to walk down Woodward
Speaker 2: in Detroit from six mile to seven mile, or walk
Speaker 2: up it from six mile to seven mile, and someone
Speaker 2: from Detroit saying, are you crazy? It's it's not safe.
Speaker 2: And you say, well, I saw it on the internet.
Speaker 2: This person did it, and my buddies did it three
Speaker 2: years ago and they said it was fine. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: You might be able to walk up Woodward one hundred
Speaker 2: times between six mile and seven mile or seven mile
Speaker 2: and eight mile nothing happened to you, and on a
Speaker 2: hundred and first time that might be lights out. But
Speaker 2: my question is that the residents of Detroit told you
Speaker 2: don't go there after dark? Would you tell then, well,
Speaker 2: I saw it on TikTok, I saw it on Facebook.
Speaker 2: You listen to him and say, maybe I shouldn't be
Speaker 2: out there playing, And unfortunately, due to social media, that's
Speaker 2: not what we're getting. And the influx of tourists crossing
Speaker 2: the ice has just been mind boggling. When I grew up,
Speaker 2: it never happened. The ice is there just for the
Speaker 2: Islanders to get back and forth, get vital supplies, make
Speaker 2: doctor's appointments, and do so without cost. And now a
Speaker 2: lot of it was due to a film that was made,
Speaker 2: which I'll say the film was very nicely done, but
Speaker 2: it didn't emphasize nearly enough how dangerous that that thing
Speaker 2: is out there. And just yesterday a guy stopped me.
Speaker 2: Hugh Rabbits has a lot of time, He's had a
Speaker 2: lot of close calls out there, and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to thank you for what you said the
Speaker 2: other day about the ice. And he said, the only
Speaker 2: thing is you were wrong. You said it changes by
Speaker 2: the hour, It changes by the minute. And he's right.
Speaker 2: Conditions can change so fast out there, and yet all
Speaker 2: we're left dealing with is well, my friend said, all
Speaker 2: I read and so and so on. I'm telling you
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work that way. And you know the
Speaker 2: misinformation being spewed about all well, the fire department checks it.
Speaker 2: And here's my favorite one. But the trees are up,
Speaker 2: it's safe. So let me tell you about the trees again.
Speaker 2: No authority puts those trees up. Those trees are used
Speaker 2: to mark the way for the guys who did the
Speaker 2: initial crossing to get over and back. That is not
Speaker 2: set up for everyone just to use as their guideline.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean anything. And what I mean by that
Speaker 2: is when the ice goes to heck, like for instance,
Speaker 2: had day Smike called me and said, there's you know,
Speaker 2: it's breaking up. Nobody went out there and took the
Speaker 2: trees down. And if a big hole opens up in
Speaker 2: the center, nobody goes out there and takes those trees down.
Speaker 2: So if you're driving up from Lavonia, Michigan, and you
Speaker 2: had your snowmobiles with you, and you get up coming
Speaker 2: up over the bridge, and by god, you see those
Speaker 2: trees out there marking that trail. Trees are up, must
Speaker 2: be safe, right, Nobody told you that a big hole
Speaker 2: opened last night, because nobody goes out there to deal
Speaker 2: with those trees because it's too dangerous. We have our
Speaker 2: own codes. We do certain things with trees. Three across
Speaker 2: the trail means it's no good. And we talked to
Speaker 2: each other, but nobody, nobody promotes that. And speaking of which,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you another story. Travis Bartanian was running the
Speaker 2: village in when the Grand Hotel had it, and a
Speaker 2: family would come in, a man and a woman and
Speaker 2: two children about eight and nine years old. And he said, oh,
Speaker 2: did you come across the ice to have dinner? And
Speaker 2: he said, yeah, we didn't follow any trees though, we
Speaker 2: just shot right over from Macina City. And Travis said
Speaker 2: what he said, Yeah, we came from Macina City. Nobody
Speaker 2: comes from Macino City. That's not where people cross the ice.
Speaker 2: The reason why is the shipping channel is open, folks.
Speaker 2: The salt bound freighters and the coal freighters they still
Speaker 2: run in the winter. They don't go through the seux
Speaker 2: locks because those are clothes. But the runs from Detroit
Speaker 2: to Chicago and various ports, the salties as we call them,
Speaker 2: they're still running. And what had happened is those people
Speaker 2: didn't know any better. They just saw stuff on Facebook
Speaker 2: and they heard from their friends. They jumped in their stowbills.
Speaker 2: They traveled here from Mackinaw City to the island, they
Speaker 2: had dinner, they were gonna leave after dark and head back.
Speaker 2: Thank god Travis engaged them, because what they didn't know
Speaker 2: is while they were eating, a freighter gone through and
Speaker 2: reopened up that channel. That whole family of floor would
Speaker 2: have gone in the drink, and that would have been
Speaker 2: the end of them. That would have been it. Nobody
Speaker 2: would have even have known where to look for him.
Speaker 2: And so folks ask, you know, why are you so
Speaker 2: passionate about this and stuff is they don't understand. I
Speaker 2: have skin in this game. I'm the fire chief. I
Speaker 2: was a firefighter first for twenty seven years before it
Speaker 2: became the chief. I've got skim in this game because
Speaker 2: me and my lifelong buddies are the ones that have
Speaker 2: to go out there and enact life saving measures when
Speaker 2: you do something silly, or you do something stupid, or
Speaker 2: you listen to some social media post by someone who
Speaker 2: doesn't know what they're talking about telling you how you
Speaker 2: can and how you go out there. And you know,
Speaker 2: one of my college buddies, I was talking to him
Speaker 2: the other day, and he's an attorney. He said, I
Speaker 2: would just tell people you're not going out there to
Speaker 2: save him anymore. And I said, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: like that. We don't have the luxury when a run
Speaker 2: comes in to say is this a tourist or is
Speaker 2: this a local? It doesn't work that way. We took
Speaker 2: an oath to protect and defend and do all we can.
Speaker 2: And while I would like to say, if you're dumb
Speaker 2: enough to watch something on TikTok or social media or
Speaker 2: a vine or whatever the hell those are called, and
Speaker 2: put your family in jeopardy and jump on a snowbill
Speaker 2: and cross three and a half to four miles of
Speaker 2: ice that you haven't even checked, then yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: think I should have to go out there. But that's
Speaker 2: not the way it works. We do what we do,
Speaker 2: and we always do so, as you can tell, there's
Speaker 2: a little there's a little passion in my voice today
Speaker 2: because this is getting out of control. On Friday, the
Speaker 2: Detroit Free Press ran an article that said the shipping
Speaker 2: lane has been closed, You're free to head across the ice.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. I was reading it, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe it. Now is the shipping lane closed? Absolutely
Speaker 2: every year. Every year the Coastguard closes the shipping waters.
Speaker 2: And all that means is no freighters or cutters or
Speaker 2: anything like that, or fairies can go in the area
Speaker 2: between Saint Agnes and Macken Island. That doesn't mean anything
Speaker 2: about the ice or its thickness. But someone saw that
Speaker 2: press release and they decided to write an article and anymore,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm digging on the press a little bit.
Speaker 2: They're aren't journalists anymore. There's people who I swear to God,
Speaker 2: they peruse Facebook and they write articles around it. They
Speaker 2: see something on Facebook and they write an article to
Speaker 2: match without doing any fact checking. And so the article said,
Speaker 2: and I posted it on my page with a big
Speaker 2: SMH next to it, and that said, you know, the
Speaker 2: Coastguard has closed the water, so you can head out
Speaker 2: to mc and Island this weekend on foot, our snowmobile
Speaker 2: or something that extent. And I emailed the reporter immediately
Speaker 2: and I said, you need to take that down or
Speaker 2: edit it because you're going to get somebody killed. And
Speaker 2: I told that reporter that there is currently a mile
Speaker 2: of open water separating mac And Island from Saint Agnas.
Speaker 2: There's ice in Stagnas, there's ice by down there's a
Speaker 2: mile of open water, and you're telling people they can
Speaker 2: just head out there. So this is the stuff I'm
Speaker 2: faced with, folks, And I'm passionate because I, for one,
Speaker 2: know how it feels to lose a friend out there
Speaker 2: in that ice, and it feels awful, and I don't
Speaker 2: want anyone else to have to feel that. I don't
Speaker 2: want the families here to ever go through that. Again,
Speaker 2: I don't know any of the tourists that are coming here,
Speaker 2: but I don't want their families to go through that.
Speaker 2: So I've been there, and you may be asking, you know,
Speaker 2: why is this Why is this episode called the Ice
Speaker 2: Bridge and the Bully? Well, when I try to correct
Speaker 2: these folks that are giving misinformation, they say that I'm
Speaker 2: bullying them, and you know, they want me to sit
Speaker 2: for an interview and tell them everything, and it's it's
Speaker 2: not like that. And so I'm hopeful you glean something
Speaker 2: from this podcast. You know, I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: all doom and gloom. Are there are there days when
Speaker 2: the ice is run all day without incident? Sure? Is
Speaker 2: there ever a day where I take it for granted,
Speaker 2: absolutely not. And you know, to watch someone pull a
Speaker 2: you know, to be in said Agnus and see someone
Speaker 2: pull a SNOWEBI a lot of a trailer that they
Speaker 2: drove up here four hours and then put their children
Speaker 2: on the back of that snowbill then head across this ice.
Speaker 2: It sometimes covers up to two hundred feet of water,
Speaker 2: two hundred feet deep of water. I just shake my
Speaker 2: head and then say, you were you were asking, you
Speaker 2: were doing the same thing if that was me taking
Speaker 2: my kids down to go down Woodward between seven mile
Speaker 2: and eight just because I could, because it's a bucket
Speaker 2: list I always wanted to do it. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of things that maybe bucket list. But you've
Speaker 2: got to know you're taking your life in your own hands,
Speaker 2: and more importantly to me and to my two daughters
Speaker 2: and my wife, you're going to be putting my life
Speaker 2: in jeopardy. And God knows I'm there to help. I
Speaker 2: truly am. But I don't think it's my position to
Speaker 2: risk my life because you did something dumb by not
Speaker 2: check facts or listen to something. By people who don't
Speaker 2: have any idea what they're talking to. Does this leave
Speaker 2: a problem of well, how are we supposed to know? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it does. It does. The locals know. The locals tell
Speaker 2: each other what's going on out there. We don't go
Speaker 2: on broadcast ice conditions just because of the stories. I
Speaker 2: told you. Change is too fast and there's no way
Speaker 2: you know it's scared. The reason we did a blackout
Speaker 2: on my Facebook page about it is people tend to
Speaker 2: hit the share button weeks later, days later, sometimes a
Speaker 2: year later, will be reshared, and folks reading that tend
Speaker 2: not to look at the date and the time. And
Speaker 2: so if we were to post a picture of people
Speaker 2: cruising across the ice, and you didn't bother to look
Speaker 2: at the date and realize that that was a month ago,
Speaker 2: or that was three weeks ago, or read all the
Speaker 2: comments saying, hey, you know that ice has moved since
Speaker 2: you're gonna get yourself in trouble. And you know, I
Speaker 2: know many of you listening may have extensive snowmobile experience,
Speaker 2: and you may have been ice fishing your whole life,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to tell you it doesn't matter. The
Speaker 2: Big Lake is indiscriminate and doesn't care who you are
Speaker 2: or what you know. When it's ready, for that ice
Speaker 2: to break up. It can break up. You know. I've
Speaker 2: been out there foraging my way across with a needle bar,
Speaker 2: a spud, a big piece of steel, checking the ice
Speaker 2: to get across, and we often check the current. And
Speaker 2: you know, the way to do that is you push
Speaker 2: them snow into the hole you just chopped and you
Speaker 2: see how fast and which direction it goes under the ice.
Speaker 2: It's not very scientific, but it works. And sometimes you
Speaker 2: push that snow in the hole and that snow underneath
Speaker 2: the ice, it just goes flying down the lake faster
Speaker 2: than you can walk. And we usually say, wow, it's
Speaker 2: boiling underneath us. There's been times when it's been flat,
Speaker 2: calm and the current is boiling. There's been times where
Speaker 2: it's been windier than hell and the current's not moving.
Speaker 2: It's you know, a lot of pressure is involved in
Speaker 2: dictating the current. One time we were about a mile
Speaker 2: off the island and we checked the current and it
Speaker 2: was going about ten miles an hour to the west.
Speaker 2: Another mile from Saint Ignace, we checked it was going
Speaker 2: ten miles to the east and we all said, oh boy,
Speaker 2: that means it's a big swirling pot. The lake is
Speaker 2: swirling you know, in a clockwise rotation, and that's not
Speaker 2: good for a sheet of ice, let me tell you.
Speaker 2: And so we know these things, and we know the perils,
Speaker 2: and you know, we look out for each other, but
Speaker 2: there's only so much we can do, I guess, to
Speaker 2: protect you from yourself other than you know, try to
Speaker 2: stay off and try to respect how dangerous it is.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things I wanted
Speaker 2: to cover. You know, I don't have a script. I
Speaker 2: just kind of shoot from the hip here, and I
Speaker 2: hope you understand where we're at with this romanticized version
Speaker 2: of one of the most dangerous things you can be
Speaker 2: a part of. So maybe you can share this with
Speaker 2: a friend. And I'm sure I'll get some more hate mail.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure some especially some younger guys you know,
Speaker 2: and you're indestructible nineteen and twenty, they'll really probably roll
Speaker 2: their eyes and say, oh, that's no big deal. But
Speaker 2: you know, I want you to particularly pay attention to
Speaker 2: that current remark I made. And here's why. You see
Speaker 2: a lot of videos of dogs and deer and sometimes
Speaker 2: people falling through a pond or falling through the ice,
Speaker 2: and you watch the Coastguard of the firemen go out
Speaker 2: and get them. The one thing they're not battling is
Speaker 2: tremendous current. An ice fisherman, a commercial ice fisherman. They're
Speaker 2: setting nets under the ice in Saint Ignas. I'm sorry
Speaker 2: to bring this up. It might hurt some feelings. But
Speaker 2: he fell through and got caught in the current, and
Speaker 2: his friends watch him bounce underneath the ice down the lake.
Speaker 2: He didn't get a chance to come up through the
Speaker 2: own hole he made fallen through falling through, So you
Speaker 2: get what I'm saying. Where you fall through a pond
Speaker 2: and you see those people just standing there, or the
Speaker 2: dog is just kind of tread and water, you've got
Speaker 2: that and this tremendous current pulling at you if you
Speaker 2: happen to fall through the big lake. And I don't
Speaker 2: know what your priorities are, but I think this is
Speaker 2: one you could probably maybe consider passing on. So once again,
Speaker 2: thank you Mustang Lounge for sponsoring this episode. I think
Speaker 2: it's an important one. And if you have hate mail
Speaker 2: for me, let it fly. Trust me, I've been in
Speaker 2: the fire service. This is my thirty sixty fifth there's
Speaker 2: thirty six year Your skin gets awful thick after all
Speaker 2: that time. But I'm Jason saint An's with the mcaaland
Speaker 2: Moments podcast, coming to you from Mcalaland and everybody, be
Speaker 2: safe out there, and good day.