Excavator called in to clear ice jam at Isthmus
By: Mandy Tourigny, Reporter
Gananoque Recorder and News
Dateline Chaffey’s Locks, 04/01/2013
Dangerously rising water levels on Clear and Newboro Lakes today prompted Parks Canada manager Allan Denaigault to contract a local excavation company to break up the ice jam blocking the Isthmus between the mainland and Scott Island at the ferry.
The dropping water level on Indian Lake at Chaffey’s Locks exposed shoals and a sunken boat “I’ve never seen before, even in fifty years living on this lake,” said local resident Dave Nugent.
Terry Peters, whose excavator untangled the ice floes blown in by last night’s stiff wind, commented: “Yeah, the ice was actually up against the ferry, so I undid the chain and pulled it up on shore with my Hy-Hoe. Then it wasn’t all that hard to uncork the ice. I could only reach out thirty feet, but the stuff wasn’t all that hard to break. The real worry was that the rushing water would take out the causeway, cause it’s mainly just gravel they trucked in there in 1949 when they put the ferry in.”
By press time the water levels had returned to normal, with minimal damage to the ferry landing at the Isthmus.
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