Are North Dakotans Paying $250 To Drive Across A Minnesota Lake?

Are North Dakotans Paying $250 To Drive Across A Minnesota Lake?

I believe y'all just may be...but don't tell the missus.  Minnesota's epic Lake of the Woods is an ice fishing paradise. It's actually an all-year-round fishing paradise, but a little more tempting when you're thwarting the Canadian border control and their COVID clearances. That'll cost ya $250.00.  This from the Associated Press...

A 37-mile ice highway in Minnesota that takes motorists across the mammoth Lake of the Woods to the northernmost point in the contiguous United States is open for the second straight year, with a toll of $250 per vehicle.

It's a round-trip $250 ticket.  The resorts on the Canada side are open for business and the trip up takes you two hours. It may only be 37 miles up to the northside, but it'll take you two hours to get there at 20 miles per hour. So four hours on the ice there and back is about $62.50 an hour...that seems fair right?

So why an Ice Highway across the Lake of the Woods?

Well, they started it last year to circumvent the border complications of COVID clearance and passports. The northside features epic ice fishing and barren outer space like endless winter wonderlands. That's how these folks described it...

“Some people say, ‘Gosh, I feel like I’m on the moon,’ and some people say they think they’re in Antarctica or on the tundra,” Joe Henry, executive director of Lake of the Woods Tourism, said of driving the ice road. “It’s big ice. Lake of the Woods is a big lake. That’s all part of the novelty. That’s all part of the feeling.”

It's reported to cost $1500 a mile to maintain the Trail on the Lake on the Woods (x 37 miles= $55,500). So, there are costs to recoup...but there are plenty of folks looking forward to ice fish "in Antarctica".  Plenty.

Maybe that's you?

The border is open again but Henry said the ice road remains important to the vitality of resorts dependent on visitors. Some people don’t have passports or other credentials to get into Canada and some aren’t vaccinated, he said.

Maybe that's you?

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