and hands out keys, bait, equipment, and advice to the transients 

 who come from Ohio, Indiana, and southern Michigan to try 

 their luck at Tawas perch. The town-on-ice was conceived by the 

 businessmen of Tawas to attract winter trade to a resort center 

 that used to go to sleep at the end of hunting season. Tawas 

 had already established a ski bowl at nearby Silver Valley, and 

 this was a help, but as Harold Gould, the druggist, pointed out, 

 "There are more fishermen than skiers, skaters, and toboggan- 

 ers." 



Perchville's success is merely the dramatic symptom of a gen- 

 eral epidemic that spreads annually over parts of the United 

 States and Canada as soon as the ice reaches a thickness of four 

 inches. It's then that the fish shanty adds its bizarre touch to 

 the nation's architectural scheme. 



Though the heated shanty is comfortable and therefore con- 

 ducive to cribbage playing, magazine reading, and other social 

 engagements, it has the disadvantage of being relatively immo- 

 bile. To counteract this, ice fishermen have developed shanties 

 on wheels, collapsible canvas shelters, and simple tarpaulin rigs. 

 Many of the fishermen, grimly out after meat, simply fish in 

 the open. 



But even these hardy souls protect themselves in every pos- 

 sible way. A cross section of the dress of an open-ice fisherman 

 would reveal two suits of woolen underwear, two wool shirts, 

 wool pants, a heavy jacket with tight wrists, and a hood that 

 fastens tight under the chin. For the feet, a weather-proof outfit 

 consists of two pairs of socks inside felt boots inside four-buckle 

 overshoes. 



With all this protection, there still remains the hazard of 

 pulling off both mitts to unhook a fish and rebait the hook in 

 zero weather at, say, 6:30 a.m. 



There also remains the need to keep minnows from freezing 

 into immobility. For these emergencies the ice fisherman often 

 carries a pail containing kindling and charcoal. He puts the 

 minnow pail next to the improvised stove. Whenever his fingers 

 begin to turn hard as link sausage in a freezer, he thaws them out 

 over the glowing pail. 



104 



