The economic and political ramifications of wind as power have been recorded in the history of man since the days of antiquity. From Greek and Roman mythology, to modern China’s drive to supplant coal-fired power plants with large-scale wind farms, wind, as one of the four natural elements, has left little to the imagination.
Wind is power. Make no mistake about that. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Duluth, and neighboring Superior, were wind dependent, relying upon sailing vessels to provide sustenance and trade. People who could harness nature to a sheet of canvas held the key to economic reward, whether in the transportation of commodities, or immigrant settlers.
As sail changed to steam on the Great Lakes, and wild speculation to orderly settlement, more time was afforded for leisure activities, such as recreational sailing during the summer months. It should come as no surprise that residents of the harbor also looked for a way to parlay their recreational activities into year-round avocations — in plain talk, something to do over the long, cold winter.
For a select few residents of the nation’s “ice belt,” winter is the time to lace up the Sorels (felt-lined boots, for those of you who are unitiated), don the ski masks and layer the body in blends of wools and synthetic fabrics. There is no point to hiding behind thermal-paned windows to catch any warmth from a sun that barely stays above the horizon long enough to be called daylight.
As the ground freezes and contracts to the hardness of concrete, long wooden runners are dragged from behind storage sheds, the skis’ rusted metal edges leaving a dull trail of glacial-like striations leading to the shore of the sheltered bay. It’s the time of season when the water turns hard, before the deep snow covers the earth, when stiff, musty-smelling sail-shaped pieces of canvas are unfurled from a mast of knotted, irregularly shaped pine; it is the time of year for iceboating.
Tom Mackay, an avid iceboater to this day, remembers hitching rides on iceboats when he was as young as 10 years old in the early 1950s. They were homemade craft, strong enough to grab the wind, as well as plow through the heavy snow on Superior Bay. The iceboats were “stern steerers, with a gaf rig and a jib,” recalls Mackay. The runners were fashioned out of oak, built for speed by screwing the angle iron from old bed frames into the wood. In the 1950s, Mackay estimates, there were 25 to 30 iceboats along Superior Bay.
By the time he was in his early teens, Mackay and his brother saved enough money to buy their own boat. “In 1958 we bought the Sputnic. Paid $25 for it,” Mackay says. Mackay laughs when he remembers naming the boat after a current event of the day, not intentionally using the “Americanized” spelling.
For the young Mackays, iceboating was more than just a fun winter activity; it was part of their family history. On the same bay, a generation earlier, Tom’s father Jim and his brother offered a ride on their iceboat to June and Louise Adams, two sisters who also lived along the Point. A few years later, Jim and Louise were married, in no small part due to the favorable winds that blew near the Oatka Boat Club that winter day.
Aside from curling, another activity exclusive to northern climes, it is unlikely that you could find a more obscure sport to the rest of the world than iceboating. Iceboating originated in Holland in the mid 1600s when merchants converted sail boats to wind powered sleds with cross beams and runners to glide across ice covered canals. The innovative Dutch soon turned the practice into a winter sport. “Hardwater” sailing followed the Dutch to North America, where portions of the frozen Hudson River became the playground for affluent settlers. The second half of the 19th century saw the formation of ice yacht clubs from New York to Wisconsin to support the growth of the sport. In 1871, while Duluth was still in its infancy, the giant 69-foot iceboat defeated the Chicago Express — a train — in a race from Poughkeepsie to Ossining, N.Y., a distance of roughly 40 miles.
Iceboating in the Twin Ports became popular during the early 1900s. Organized competitions between clubs and iceboating enthusiasts were a highlight of mid-winter festivals. Naturally, the bay areas between Minnesota Point and Connor’s Point were well protected, open areas where an iceboat could speed unimpeded across a great surface of ice.
On the Wisconsin side of the bay, Carl Stolpe, a hard-nosed Swede from Superior’s tough North End, recalls a collision between his ice boat and an automobile on the ice off of East Gate Basin. The car suffered a creased fender and an angry driver. Stolpe was never happier for a speedy iceboat that day. Stolpe, who grew up during the Great Depression, remembers making his first ice boat with a neighborhood friend around 1939. Stolpe kept his iceboat shackled to the WDSM radio tower down near the Interstate Bridge, at the end Connor’s Point. A Ukrainian immigrant named Uskynk, living in one of the last houses before the bridge, also had an iceboat and became a source of much amusement for Stolpe. “He used to put the sails up and go sailing around, and when the wind got too strong he’d put his boat away.” When Uskynk pulled his boat in, it was a sign for Stolpe to take his boat out. “He’d tell me, ‘My gosh, you gotta be crazy,’ and I’d say, ‘It takes some wind to run this boat. Come on, go for a ride with me!’ ”
Stolpe never missed a chance to try goading the wary man into riding with him. “Those sails were quivering like they were gonna rip apart, you know. I had it over a hundred miles an hour,” said Stolpe with a laugh. “He never rode on my boat.”
By the mid 1960s, gas powered machines on skis became popular. Since then, America’s love affair with powered vehicles has been relentless. And wind, over the last century, ceased to be the driving force of the economy, shifting now to the role as a deterrent to progress, a natural element restricting the mobility of man. In the 20th century, wind became a culpable source of blame, an eroding agent of time, still capable of controlling man’s fear, but not his economic destiny.
Still, a few old-timers like Tom Mackay hang on to the exuberance of wind-powered iceboating. Sleeker, faster boats built on light-weight frames are about the only technical change in the past hundred years, but many practitioners still build the old-fashioned way, on a shoestring budget with nothing but fun in mind. As a result, it isn’t likely that iceboat racing will ever find its way into the modern Olympiad, at least any time soon. Yet, with the surging interest in wind power as a viable, long-term energy source, perhaps its day will come again.
Harnessing the wind on frozen Lake Superior. Photo is courtesy of Carl Stolpe, who is nearest the center in the picture.
Pat Lapinski, a native of Superior, Wisconsin, is a writer and photographer who concentrates on the Great Lakes maritime industry. Visit: www.inlandmariners.com.