Paul Leischow took advantage of light winds today to take his drone out over the Keewatin Channel.
Looking south over Channel Island.
Just in case you’re new here, this is how it works: click on the still image above to download the video from ReelMedia.org. Once you have it open, you can let the view pan slowly around, or you can use your mouse cursor to manually change the view. You can swing around, tilt the view up and down, and zoom in and out.
There are actually three videos available via the link. From the first one, shot from over Keewatin Channel, look for the arrow markers over Yacht Club Island or the Keewatin Bridge; click on one of them to load the second or third panoramas.
The biggest change I notice is that open water south of Keewatin Channel is starting to reach out towards Town Island, and even in the still shot, you can see some patches of poor ice closer to Scotty Island. Looking at all the drone footage, it seems that you could take a boat from the downtown Kenora Harbourfront all the way to Channel Island.
Other than that, I have to admit that there hasn’t been stunning progress. I thought all the candled ice along the Kenora shoreline,–especially near Safeway and Laurenson’s creek–would vanish in less than twenty-four hours. I guess we need a little more wind for that to happen.
SIGNS OF SPRING:
- I saw my first boat on the lake today, a small ‘tin’ boat near the floatplane docks. I’m not saying it’s the first, but it’s the first one I noticed.
- I managed to inhale a gnat on one of my recent hikes. Yay.
The forecast seems to be moderating a bit. It depends on who you ask, but some sources, like Environment Canada, have improved the forecast for later this week, saying that daytime highs will at least reach 4ºC or more.
The Weather Network still thinks it might be no warmer than 1ºC on Friday. The Weather Channel says 2ºC. After that setback, everyone is calling for a return to daytime highs in the teens.
Lake of the Woods Ice Patrol 
It sure has been a strange melt. Given the warm winter and lack of snow, it would seem that we were in line to have an early ice out. No such luck. It is indeed possible to get to Channel Island, we broke a channel though the ice near Gull Rock Reef four days ago, and the wind and weather has opened that channel to be ice free. My son-in-law also broke a channel from Norman to Kenora through the ice in front of the formerly named Birchwood Terrace on Saturday, and it probably that boat you saw off the aircraft docks.
The ice has been stubbornly holding on though, it seems to have just enough integrity to prevent the wind from blowing it out. Also, we seem to still be getting some overnight refreezing despite Environment Canada stating the temps have stayed above zero. This morning for example there was a new skim of ice in front of our home despite temperature overnight only going down as low as +3C according to Environment Canada.
One further sign of spring, we saw a flock of nine whooping cranes on Saturday out near Channel Island. We have seen a few others over the past couple of weeks, but that is the highest number we have seen together, so it would seem they are becoming increasingly interested in getting to their breeding grounds ASAP.
As to my prediction of ice out by April 21st, given the cold weather coming again who knows. But high humidity, even in colder but above zero temperatures can have positive effects though. So if we get some significant rain or at least fog, maybe we can still have ice out as predicted. Here’s hoping!