West Okoboji at 3am and the Big News

Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009, at 10:37 AM

I woke up at 3am last night and had a hard time getting back to sleep until I realized I had good company: I realized West Okoboji was awake, too. Even though I live a few blocks away from the lake, I could hear her (him?) groaning, but this wasn't any old groan. It is a muffled mysterious sound that fills the atmosphere and rocks the trees, a sound that travels and spans and disappears into silence, making you wonder if you really heard it. But I knew this sound from other winters, it is the sound of ice expanding and shifting, as it tries to make room for itself within the limits of its shoreline, when suddenly it cracks, releasing pressure and generating from under the ice a giant slow motion burping sound. No wonder I awoke!

So West Okoboji has finally frozen. (Actually I have not had the chance to completely survey it from all its angles and bays, but appeared so by Monday, December 14. What are your observations?)

Because it is deeper and larger than the other lakes, West Okoboji is slower to cool and is usually the last water body in our region to freeze. Geese, ducks and coots are hold outs in the open water to its freezing end, and some end up freezing with the water. Last winter while skating on Smith's Bay near Ft. Dodge Point I found several geese welded into the ice. Ft. Dodge Point is not very pointy, it only juts several hundred yards into the big lake, but it is enough to create a sheltered cove on for waterfowl on north-wind days where they can be fooled into thinking they won't freeze. Ft. Dodge Point, by the way, is a great place to bird watch in early winter and look for normally uncommon species of ducks. Often you will see an eagle or two also watching the ducks, but with different motive!

While the freezing of the lakes is the big news this week for the fish, the big news for us humans who need to be good stewards of their ecology and health, is the Iowa DNR's final recommendation that West Okoboji and Big Spirit Lake be designated as Outstanding Iowa Waters was approved Tuesday by the DNR Environmental Protection Commission. This is great cause for cheer! In a nutshell, this means these lakes will receive the highest protection possible to protect their existing water quality from ever degrading.

Notice I said "existing" water quality. You may also notice that the other lakes in the Iowa Great Lakes watershed did not receive the Outstanding Iowa Waters designation. Those two facts go together, and in my next blog I will explain further as why we need not despair about that. For now, get out your ice skates, sleds, winter fishing equipment and celebrate our lakes in winter!

Waterblogger

Jane Shuttleworth

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ABOUT ME: I live in Okoboji with my husband Hank Miguel in a wonderful house he built mostly himself, located 3 land-ward tiers away from the summer cottage on Des Moines Beach where I grew up visiting my grandmother during the summer months when school was out. The cottage is still in our family, and was initially purchased by my great grandfather F. C. Gilchrist, and remains the heart of family reunions and summer escapades. When I was 10 years old, I walked around Lake West Okoboji with my brother and the neighbor kids. It took us 12 hours, but we lolly gagged along the way, and enjoyed a ride on the roller coaster at Arnold's Park before it was all over. I remember we had to wade our way around the undeveloped shoreline where Iowa Lakeside Laboratory is located, through dark swarms of baby bullheads. I was both fascinated and scared of them, but they did not hurt us. I looked up from the shore across the expansive lawn crowned at the top by the Lakeside dining hall, and wondered what madness went on in that place. Little did I suspect then that I would study, and then work at Lakeside Lab! Today I am the Environmental Education Coordinator at Lakeside. One of my duties includes the coordination of the Cooperative Lakes Area Monitoring Project, a volunteer lake monitoring program that samples nine lakes in Dickinson County, and is the longest running lake monitoring program in the state of Iowa. I am a Commissioner and one of the founders of the Dickinson County Water Quality Commission, a cooperative entity between county and municipal governments that provides grants to fund water quality projects. I am a past president and currently serve on the board of the Okoboji Protective Association, and am proud to have served previously on the boards of the East Okoboji Lakes Improvement Corporation and the Spirit Lake Protective Association, and am a volunteer with the Dickinson County Clean Water Alliance.

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