Ice Houses

Posted by on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 8:40 am

At Ignace Outposts we are one of the few outfitters that still keep ice houses at our fly in camps. Besides having one or two fridges (depending on camp size) at each cabin, we provide ice for beverages etc in our ice houses.

“Where does the ice come from?”
We hear this question often regarding our ice houses.

The ice in the icehouse is placed there in the winter. It is cut by hand from the frozen lake. Try as we might, we can not fill the ice houses in the summer.

Because the icehouse is not a big freezer, the ice will melt quickly in there on it’s own if not properly attended. When you use the ice, cover up any exposed ice with the sawdust. Using the axe or a large screwdriver, take a block of ice out (please only what you need), rinse off the sawdust and put it in a cooler. You will never get all the saw dust off no matter hard you scrub and if you scrub long enough you will be left with only saw dust and no ice. Put some ice in your cooler and place your beer in the cooler with the ice. A little saw dust will not hurt the beer cans. Another point – the ice in your cooler does not need to be replaced until it is gone. Ice is ice and the ice from the icehouse is no colder than the ice already in your cooler.