Ice Fishing & Tubing

A couple Fridays ago, Derek left work a bit early & we checked Shelby out of school so we could all go ice fishing & tubing on base. It was a very quintessential Alaskan day for us, ha!

Last year, Brady & I tagged along on Shelby's 6th grade ice fishing trip, and it wasn't the best ice fishing experience. ;)  Hundreds of kids ice fishing out on a frozen lake led to not many kids being successful. And on top of that, it was some of the absolute coldest temperatures we'd ever experienced since living here! We were thrilled to have this family ice fishing trip led by the Outdoor Rec program on base. They had tents with propane heaters & hot cocoa--a vast improvement! The tents were a little smelly because of the propane heaters & felt a little claustrophobic {in my opinion}, so we stayed outside the vast majority of the time. But it was still nice to have the "indoor" option.

There were two bald eagles perched at the top of a tree on the edge of the lake. We see a lot of bald eagles here {not too surprising since we live along the Eagle River}, but we've never heard bald eagles before. And holy moly, they are noisy! We soon realized these bald eagles had figured out that ice fishing was happening and would swoop down to instantly devour any discarded fish. It was astounding! 

Another thing that surprised us was how thick the ice was on the lake where we fishing. The common rule of thumb that we've heard since moving to Alaska is to not attempt to walk/skate on ice unless it is at least 6 inches deep. We estimated this ice to be about 18 inches deep, it was crazy!

{after handling the fish with his bare hands, the only option Derek had was rinsing his hands in the freezing lake water}

{the kids enjoyed using the strainers to pick up any little ice clumps that start to form at the top of the water...it's wild to see how fast the water will start to ice up}

After ice fishing, we walked over to go snow tubing! It was the perfect end to the evening, and we got to watch a beautiful sunset as we tubed!

We certainly miss sunshine & warm weather {and lots of other things too, ha!}, but life here is filled with adventure & beauty! I hope the kids will always remember our time in Alaska!