'A Blank Canvas:' Grand Traverse Bay Frozen For First Time Since 2019

Grand Traverse Bay is officially frozen for the first time since 2019 and only the seventh time this century.

After a prolonged stretch of temperatures ranging from cold to brutally cold, ice slowly built on both bays after first appearing in significant quantities last week. Much of East Bay was frozen by last weekend, and the team at The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay made the call on West Bay early Tuesday morning.

“We had been checking the last week or so from a number of different vantage points, so we’ve been closely watching things,” The Watershed Center's Heather Smith tells The Ticker. “This is very exciting; it just doesn’t happen all that much these days.”

The Watershed Center, a local environmental nonprofit, has been the official record-keeper of bay freezes for decades. In order to call West Bay frozen, they wait for solid ice all the way up to Power Island.

Since 2000, the bay froze in 2003, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. It’s been a downward trend since the days when the bay not freezing was news.

“In all the ice data prior to 1980, the west arm froze in about 80 percent of those winters,” Smith says. “From 1980 to the current day, we’re just under 40 percent.”

From an ecological perspective, the bay freeze is a welcome phenomenon. Among other benefits, reduced water movement results in much less shoreline erosion, Smith says, and calmer water under ice also increases the egg survival of fall-spawning native fish species.

The current freeze is also great news for thousands of people who are eager to get out on this increasingly rare playground. Don Rautenberg runs the fishing department at Roy’s General Store, known among area anglers for its selection of locally-made lures. Anticipation has been through the roof as the bay freeze seemed more and more likely, he says.

“People are crazy excited. They’re ecstatic about it,” Rautenberg tells The Ticker. “All they want to do is get out there and fish…and being able to jig for lake trout is a big part of it.”

Lake trout can be caught on some local inland waters, but they are much more plentiful in the bay. Add in whitefish, burbot, cisco and perch, and the frozen bays are considered by many to be the holy grail of northern Michigan ice fishing.

Traverse City resident and businessman Tim Pulliam is an avid mountain biker. He can’t wait to get the fat tires out and log plenty of miles on the bay, which he described as some of the most magical biking around.

“When you leave from Clinch on a bike and you see that island out there, it’s so much different than riding in the woods or on the road where you can just see to the next bend,” he tells The Ticker. “It’s like riding on the salt flats. You’re just going and going, and it seems like that island’s not getting any closer. It’s wild.”

Arriving at the island itself is icing on the cake.

“Being on the island in the snow with bikes and skis is such an amazing feeling,” Pulliam says. “It’s epic.”

Longtime resident Bruce DeBoer is among the countless folk who have strapped on skis during one of the last several bay freezes. Aside from the slightly eerie feeling of being on such a massive and deep body of water, it was a real thrill. 

“It’s very level, so any push off your pole, the glide was just tremendous, and you could get up to a pretty good speed with that skating technique,” he says. “It’s pretty exhilarating being able to fly along.”

Kwin Morris is an Elk Rapids-area native who taught at Elk Rapids schools for years. He has fond memories of all sorts of activities on the bay and is pumped for another freeze.

“It being so rare makes it so special,” Morris tells The Ticker. “Being a hockey player growing up and being able to make these passes that seem to go on forever, and even just knowing you’re skating on a Great Lake is just so unique…it’s just an exciting time. Whenever it happens we make a point of getting out there."

All of these activities aside, the novelty of simply walking around on the bay is enough for most. Back in 2019, Jill Kipley and a friend walked out to Power Island. Aside from waking to a place she’d only ever been to on a boat, she was enraptured with the quiet solitude of a place almost never experienced in winter.

“It was a bucket list thing for sure,” she says. “I really like having the opportunity to do it again seven years later.”

Traverse City Commissioner Mitch Treadwell has made a habit of walking long distances over ice, usually on inland lakes. But during the bay freeze 2019 he walked from Suttons Bay to Elk Rapids, and he’s eager for a similar – or even grander – adventure. As with so many other pursuits, the bay represents the next level. 

“When the big lake freezes, it’s just so much more exciting,” he tells The Ticker. “It’s like a blank canvas yearning for footprints.”

Folks at the Watershed Center (and others) urge people to be safe when venturing out.

“I mirror the DNR’s message, which is that no ice is safe ice,” Smith says. “People need to exercise caution any time they’re out on the ice. Just because we see ice…doesn’t mean it’s thick ice or that it’s consistent in any way.”