Ernie Albright's Ice House

On a vicious gray Iron Range afternoon, wisps of snow sped across a low meringue of ripply, crunchy drifts on Whitewater Lake. Clustered around Ernie Albright's simple, solid fish spearing shack were a few other icehouses, a rustic Jeep, and an old, green Ford pickup. Ernie was a retired iron ore miner who spent most of his winter days hunched in darkness, staring at a hole in the ice, waiting patiently for northern pike. A wood stove had warmed the air enough for Ernie to push the sleeves of his plaid wool shirt and long john top halfway up his blue-collar forearms. The long shaft of a trident rested against his right shoulder. A hand-carved minnow decoy, hanging from a line between his left thumb and forefinger, was suspended in three feet of frigid water. With subtle twitches of his wrist, he delicately swam the fake fish in smooth dips and arcs. Had a pike nosed into the circle of soft green light, pursuing the decoy, Ernie would have eased the spear into the water and struck the spine of the fish, burying all three barbed points in its thick back, then hauled it, flopping and bleeding, out of the hole. The gale force howl was a distant rumor, a muffled, comforting whisper inside the tight little shack. In the backlit aqua green glow of the hole, the miniature fish looped around and around through thick winter liquid.