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It's the most perilous time of the year
Ice on Yellowknife Bay gets 'too thick to paddle through and too thin to walk on'

Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Friday, November 6, 2015

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The small window between a Yellowknife autumn and a November freeze-up is often a very tumultuous experience for houseboaters in the bay.

NNSL photo/graphic

A canoe sits on the shore of Yellowknife Bay where houseboaters are faced with the most tumultuous times before freeze-up. - Walter Strong/NNSL photo

As the water freezes and snow flies, those who live on the water must be careful, compared to the summer when they can canoe to shore and winter when they are able to walk or drive.

Gary Vaillancourt has lived on the south end of Jolliffe Island since 1981 and said the time between Halloween and Remembrance Day give or take a few days, involves a unique and sometimes challenging experience for most houseboaters.

"A lot of it depends on the weather but the biggest factor is the wind," he said. "You can get anything from freeze-up that will take two to three weeks of freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw, wind blowing, slush and then pack ice. That would not be a big deal but we are out here using canoes. It gets basically too thick to paddle through and too thin to walk on."

Vaillancourt, who began walking to shore as needed only this week, said this year was a "smooth freeze-up" in which there was a couple of days where a canoe path was maintained through the ice between houseboats in the bay and shore before there was enough ice to walk.

"People are a lot more comfortable with walking on thin ice here than the general public would be because we are more used to it," he said. "You know what you can get away with."

Vaillancourt said sometimes people will drag a canoe while walking from a houseboat to shore just to be extra safe. If the ice breaks under a person, they can then simply jump in the boat.

Because he is retired, he said he avoids leaving home in the transition to freeze-up.

"I kind of stock up and make sure I don't have to go in town over that particular period and try to avoid it," he said, adding he occupies himself by fixing up his home and building a propane cabinet for severe cold weather. "If I have to go to town I will but mostly I will just avoid that whole scene."

Vaillancourt said he doesn't usually follow the Department of Transportation guidelines when it is safe to walk or travel on the ice. The Department of Transportation and the City of Yellowknife typically advise that it is safe to walk on the ice when there is 15-centimetres of ice on a lake surface.

"What I do is I just walk around and if it isn't making noise when I am walking on it then it is fine," he said. "If it is making noise then it is giving away. So then you should return or push a canoe. You don't just stand there and watch it sink under your feet."

Matthew Grogono lives at the south west corner of Jolliffe Island and has been part of the houseboat community for 30 years. He said he took special pleasure in watching and tracking the freeze-up over the last few days.

"The ice went over last Saturday night and on Sunday we had one inch, on Monday two inches and by Wednesday we had two and a half inches," he said. "It is just barely enough for someone to walk across as long as they are very cautious."

He called this year's freeze-up "very gracious" in that there weren't strong winds as in other years which would cause a freeze-up followed by thaws.

"It was the most low-key freeze-up I have had in 30 years. I just love watching it."

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