Let’s head west for the next set of vintage iceboat postcards. The most unusual of this series is the card from Middle Des Lacs Lake in Kenmare, North Dakota, 30 miles from the Canadian border as the crow flies. A long and narrow lake, Middle Des Lacs is only .5 mile wide by 2.5 miles long. The wind would have to be just right for a Stern Steerer sail on that lake!
Iowa has a well documented history of ice sailing. Traveling ten hours southeast from Kenmare, our next stop is Spirit Lake, Iowa, home of the Okoboji Yacht Club. Our Iowan tour continues two hours east of Spirit Lake to Clear Lake, Iowa home of the Clear Lake Yacht Club.
This postcard trip concludes on Wisconsin’s west coast (or Minnesota and Iowa’s east coast), Lake Pepin.
A new summer series begins today featuring the original “Short Message Service”, vintage postcards from around the world. Let’s start right here in the Four Lakes area of Madison, Wisconsin with these five postcards.
Bernard’s Fleet recalls the time when the Bernard family kept a rental fleet of Stern Steerers on Lake Mendota. “Princess” World International Racer was a famous Stern Steerer built by William Bernard for Emil Fauerbach (Peter Fauerbach’s great great uncle).
I’ll post more in the coming weeks. If you have any to share, please let me know.
A package recently arrived here at iceboat.org containing an old scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings and black and white photos of the Madison iceboating scene from the late 1940s through 1950s. Herb Krogman may have assembled this historic scrapbook and Renegader Jerry Simon has volunteered to look through it to help confirm my suspicions.(By the way, if you sent this to me, please send send me an email so that I can thank you!)
In the meantime, here are a few photos for now. I’ll continue to scan and post more in the coming weeks.
