The festival began on Wednesday and runs through Sunday. Those events, plus area snowmobiling, a parade on Saturday and other events are expected to attract 15,000 people. To test the ice, holes were drilled at several spots around the lake. The tests found it to be about 20 inches thick, said Dave Koenig, a member of the festival's safety committee. That and the fact that there are dozens of ice fishing shanties on the lake played into the decision to keep the festival on the lake.
Fliers warn people of the open waters where a canal and rivers enter the lake.
Festival organizers welcomed the safety committee's findings. The festival was moved off the ice to the Civic Arena last year because of warm weather. The crowd dwindled to about half its normal size because of that and reports of little snow on the trails, said Jeff Geeseman, president of the event. There's a big difference between the weather last year and this year, Geeseman said. At that time, the ice hadn't really started to get thick and hardly anyone had ventured out to ice-fish.