King of the castle: Man creates ice structure at cabin

The ice is nice for one family at Echo Lake.

Since 2012, Sean Frisky and his family have built a castle made out of chunks of ice. The structure includes a bar that also is made of frozen H2O.

“We do it probably every second year because it is a lot of work, but my wife is very much into Christmas in a big way and we decided a long time ago when the kids were little we were going to try and make this ice castle,” Frisky said Wednesday.

Since then, it has become a place for members of the community to gather and enjoy some friendly company, even during the COVID pandemic.

“It’s right in front of our cabin and in today’s COVID world, it’s got no roof, you’re outdoors, there’s fresh air, there’s fire and you’re out of the wind,” Frisky said.

(Sean Frisky/Submitted)

One of the key tools to making the castle is an old saw from the 1950s that Frisky’s neighbour had.

“They used to cut logs of ice out for refrigeration so I went up to the shop and looked at and it looked like it would cut a lot of ice really quickly,” Frisky said.

“We put a new motor on it and we’ve been using the saw ever since. It’s a big 36-inch rotary blade and you can cut about eight feet of ice per minute at one foot of depth.”

Frisky said this year it took about 4 1/2 hours for six friends and their families to put together the castle.

And how does it all come to fruition?

“We start by harvesting the logs of ice. Using that big saw, we cut right through to the water so we want to do it when the ice is about one foot thick,” Frisky said. “You end up with these logs floating that are 12 by 12 inches and then they are various lengths.”

(Sean Frisky/Submitted)

They then use a four-wheeler to haul the ice chunks out of the water. Frisky said they use about 66,000 pounds of ice to build the castle.

And after doing this project for a few years, they’ve made some improvements as to how they build it to make it a bit more efficient.

“We used to manually push the blocks up like the pyramids using angle iron and manual labour,” Frisky said. “This year we used a skid steer to lift them up with forks so it was much, much easier.

“You start backing them together and building it like a log house and then use snow and water to (fill) the cracks and make it a structural building.”

As the years have gone on, they’ve also improved the functionality of it as well.

“It keeps getting bigger and then the ice bar keeps getting bigger inside and then we’ve got bench heating with a fire inside on the other side,” Frisky said. “They get a little more elaborate.”

And it has turned into a place for the community to gather and enjoy some company.

“It’s a reason to pop over and have a drink at the ice castle. Otherwise, people are at the lake and people may not pop by but it’s outdoors and people literally just hop in and say hi or have a drink. It’s good little community building,” Frisky said.

“The kids have a blast. We build a skating rink in front of it and all that kind of stuff.”

The ice castle is set to be a part of his winter plans for the immediate future.

“Every year as you get a little bit older, it gets a little bit harder,” Frisky said, “but I’ll continue to do it as long as I can for sure.”