The heat of July is a long way off during the short, cold days of January, but that’s what motivates a gang of volunteers each year to cut, haul and pack several tons of ice from Squam Lake into a shed filled with sawdust.
Once the ice on the lake gets thick enough, those ice blocks – 12 inches by 15 inches by 19 inches – are cut by a massive circular saw and chainsaws, guided through a narrow canal, hauled by a winch up a ramp, slid into the back of a truck, unloaded into an insulated ice house, pushed into neat rows and sprinkled with sawdust, which acts as a natural insulator.
The annual ice harvest – part history lesson and part tourist event – runs several days and draws enthusiastic participants, known as “ice wranglers,” from throughout the region. The job takes lots of hands and some brute force – last winter crews cut 3,600 blocks, each weighing about 115 pounds. For those doing the math, that’s more than 200 tons of ice.
“I know the traditional ways of doing this are not being passed on in many places,” said Jon Spence of Holderness, who has been helping with the ice harvest for 12 years.
The harvest needs just the right conditions for the ice to be right – it needs to be at least 12 inches thick to drive the truck onto the lake, but if it’s more than 15 inches, volunteers have a hard time moving the blocks around.
Fast forward six months, and each morning at the rustic Rockywold Deephaven Camps, a crew of workers pull the ice blocks out of hibernation, wash off the sawdust and deliver a block to each one of the cabins, which still use old-fashioned ice boxes for refrigeration.
The camp, which has been operating since 1897, delivers a block to 60 cabins and rooms in the lodge each day in the summer. Each block of ice is lifted with tongs and placed in the upper compartment of the room’s “ice box” – still the term used for refrigerators in some parts of the country. During the day, the cold air sinks down into the insulated compartment below while the water from the melting ice is collected in a pan. The next day, the ice is replaced with a fresh block cut the January prior.
The ice harvest at Squam Lake is as much tradition as a necessity.
As the story goes, one year in the 1960s the camp installed refrigerators, which led to a near revolt and quick return of the annual ice harvest. Now in its 123rd season, the harvest continues.
But Rockywold Deephaven isn’t the only New Hampshire institution using old-fashioned ice harvesting to lure customers. The Kezar Lake and Muster Field Farm Museum in North Sutton organizes an annual ice harvesting and saves the blocks in an ice house, using them for another vitally important task in the summertime, making ice cream.