THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, January 13, 2011 HARVEST from 1


the first of which dates back to 1897. But Norm Lyford of Ash-


land, who has been har- vesting ice from Squaw Cove on Squam Lake for 66 years, says that the basics of the mid-winter ritual have changed very little. “We used to use an old


one-lunger engine with a saw like you’d use on cordwood to cut the ice with. It had a wide belt that ran the saw,’’ recalls Lyford, who has worked at the camps ever since he was a teenager, and recalls helping his fa- ther, Colby, build many of the more than 60 rustic cabins that are set back amidst tree stands and barely visible from the lake. Now 84, Lyford has cut


back on his role in the harvest and no longer mans the saw. Wearing ice creepers to keep from fall- ing on the slick surface, Lyford and others work with ice hooks to push the 140-pound blocks of ice through a 16-inch wide channel and into a load- ing chute where they are winched onto a ramp and then loaded into the back of a flat bed truck, 35 blocks at a time, for trans- port to one of two sawdust insulated ice houses for


with the water, which would freeze on the saw and slow its operation. Workers then use fork-


shaped pikes and chain saws to cut the blocks free. In order to keep the ice free of petroleum prod- ucts, no bar and chain oil is used in the power saws, whose bars are lu- bricated by contact with the water. Jurczynski said that


around 3,000 blocks of ice, weighing between 125 pounds and 150 pounds, will be harvested this week and will be used in the ice boxes in the camp’s 65 cabins starting in June. “In mid-September when


we close there are always blocks of ice left over, which shows how well the ice houses do their work,’’ says Jurczynski. He says that the guests


who stay at the camps during the summer, most of whom are repeat visi- tors, like the quaintness


Blocks of ice head up a conveyor belt after being cut on Squam Lake in Holderness.


storage. Carl Hansen, who oper-


ates the 36-inch motor- ized ice saw, says that the undercarriage of the ap- paratus is about 40 years old but a new engine and a clutch have been add- ed to make its operation more safe and efficient.


40 foot long rows, 16 inches apart, and then cuts across the rows at 20 inch intervals to separate the blocks. The saw pen- etrates deep into the ice, which is about 12 inches thick this year, but stops short of making contact


The saw is used to cut FOR SALE BY OWNER NEW HAMPTON


ROGER AMSDEN PHOTO 3 BR CAPE 2.87 ACRES


21


of the old-fashioned ice boxes and want to see the tradition continued. Ice harvesting was at


one time a major winter industry across northern New England, supplying millions of tons of ice to the greater Boston and New York areas which were delivered by special ice trains which carried the ice, stored in large buildings where it was in- sulated by layers of saw- dust, to urban areas along the East Coast. In small towns in the Lakes Region families har- vested ice for their own use and sometimes as a small side business. Dr. Edwin C. Remick, found- er of the Remick Coun- try Doctor Museum and Farm, harvested ice for use in his dairy business starting in the 1930’s. That tradition is kept


al ive at the museum, where every February ice See HARVEST on 22


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