×

As weather warms, palace builders keep an eye on ice

Dean Baker supervises clearing slush off the ice Friday. (Enterprise photo — Glynis Hart)

SARANAC LAKE — Temperatures in the mid 30s over the weekend didn’t please everyone, as those with an eye to ice-making for the annual Ice Palace were hoping for chill.

Dean Baker, who has been involved in the palace construction for 36 years, said on Friday he was hoping to cut ice Monday.

But on Monday the ice over Pontiac Bay, where Baker and the volunteers had cleared the snow, glistened with a layer of water. Forecasts for Tuesday predicted 43 degrees and a 100 percent chance of rain.

“One rainy day without wind is not a problem,” said Baker. “If the palace is built, it just glazes it and makes it more solid.”

However, in order to build the palace they need more than 2,000 2-by-4-foot foot ice blocks from Pontiac Bay. And first, the ice has to form. On Friday, the workers were scraping a layer of slush off the ice from the week’s snowfall. Snow insulates the ice and keeps it from forming.

Puddles of water glisten on the ice of Pontiac Bay, Lake Flower, on Monday after a warm weekend in Saranac Lake. (Enterprise photo — Glynis Hart)

Brandy Brook had contributed a slick of water on top of the ice, too.

“We delay the build as long as we can,” said Baker. “We were supposed to start [Thursday. Jan. 18], but that didn’t happen.”

The annual Ice Palace is a longstanding Saranac Lake tradition. The first one was built in 1897. Early Ice Palaces were built on the hill where North Country Community College now stands. It didn’t become a yearly tradition until after World War II, in 1947.

Baker said the Ice Palace in Saranac Lake is unique as the longest-running all-volunteer-built ice palace in the world. However, in the early days the job was put out to bid. According to Caperton Tissot’s “Adirondack Ice,” volunteers took over the building of the palace in the 1960s.

Tissot notes that to be a true “ice palace,” the structure needs to be “palace-like with an enclosed room or rooms, consist entirely of ice blocks [not sculpted snow] and stand on its own without the support of inner wooden or other type frames.”

Ice palaces are built in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in Harbin City, China, but those, as well as the one being built this year in Lincoln, New Hampshire, are erected by for-profit entities. St. Petersburg, Russia, has built an ice palace every year since 2005.

The ice castle in Eagle River, Wisconsin, also boasts a storied past, having first been built in 1933. The Eagle River edifice, using 2,100 blocks this year, is 30 feet tall and 25 by 30 feet in area, and built by the Eagle River Area Volunteer Fire Department and community volunteers. It was declared finished this year on Jan. 8.

In Saranac Lake, Baker said they’ll keep waiting for their chance, and hope for cold weather. Once the palace is built, weather will affect its longevity, too.

If the weather gets too warm, they may need to start over or dismantle the palace for safety.

“Some years we’ve torn it down and rebuilt it three times,” said Baker.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.75/week.

Subscribe Today