Nature is a crazy thing. And in the Midwest, Mother Nature is not to be messed with. If you've ever experienced a Midwest winter, I'm pretty sure you can agree it's not for the faint of heart. We see some serious snow and ice during the winter months. So what happens when a Wisconsin Island requires a ferry to travel to and the lake used for travel freezes? You do what any sane Midwesterner would do, drive across frozen Lake Superior.

Have you ever heard of the Madeline Ice Road in Wisconsin? Because I had never heard of it before, and it's blowing my mind. I get nervous to walk on a frozen lake, but driving on it? Yeah, I can't say I ever thought to do that before. But apparently in Madeline, WI. it's just another part of winter in their town.

So normally you need a ferry across Lake Superior to travel to Madeline. But when the winter months hit, obviously the lake begins to freeze over. At first, it's not completely frozen, and according to OIS -

And when the icy waters are too thick for ferry service but too thin for vehicles, the Madeline Island Windsled becomes operational. An experience all its own, the Windsled is basically a flat-bottomed airboat that can travel on the ice but will float should the ice not be thick enough.

 

But when the ice is finally hard enough, cars, busses, vans, and even bikers are allowed to cross the lake which spans 1.9 miles. OIS also details -

And though ice roads aren’t necessarily rare, the Madeline Island Ice Road is unique in the fact that it’s the only ice road that appears on official state maps.

I still can't imagine trusting ice enough to drive on it, but apparently a lot of people do.

For more information on the Ice Road and/or the Windsled, call (715) 747-5400. You can also visit the Bayfield County website or the Madeline Island Ice Road Facebook page.

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