What is new for Northwoods Drifter in 2026
Since 1933, the Eagle River Ice Castle has stood as one of the Northwoods’ most beloved winter traditions—a shimmering fortress of frozen Silver Lake water that transforms downtown Eagle River into something out of a storybook. This year, though, the castle won’t rise. The Eagle River Volunteer Fire Department announced they couldn’t harvest enough ice from Silver Lake to safely build the structure, leaving locals and business owners facing a winter without one of the community’s biggest seasonal draws.
Assistant Fire Chief Greg Simac put it plainly: they pulled just 10½ inches of ice when they need at least 13 inches for safe construction. “We try to do everything we can to help build ice and get an ice castle every year, but the weather just dictates it,” Simac told local media. “We’re all disheartened that we weren’t able to do it.” For a region that counts on winter tourism to balance out the slower months, this cancellation carries weight beyond nostalgia.
Walk into the Friendship House Family Restaurant on any typical January day, and you’ll understand what winter means for Northwoods businesses. Manager Dita Djeladini doesn’t mince words about the seasonal struggle: “We look forward to anything that’s gonna happen during the winter. Because it’s not like summer, we really struggle during the winter.” The ice castle, which typically stands right next to the restaurant downtown, brings a steady stream of visitors willing to drive two or three hours just to see it.
It might seem like a simple roadside attraction—a stack of ice blocks lit up at night—but the ripple effect touches every corner of Eagle River’s economy. When hundreds of tourists make the trip to see the castle, they’re also stopping for meals, buying gas, browsing gift shops, and sometimes booking overnight stays. For family-owned operations like Friendship House, these winter visitors can mean the difference between a survivable season and a truly difficult one. Without the castle this year, that cushion disappears.
Building an ice castle isn’t something you knock out over a weekend with a couple saws and some elbow grease. The Eagle River Fire Department volunteers invest hundreds of hours into this tradition, harvesting roughly 3,000 blocks of ice from Silver Lake—each block weighing about 60 pounds. They use vintage ice-cutting tools to score and extract the blocks, then haul them downtown to construct a structure that can reach 20 feet tall.
The process connects to Eagle River’s deep winter heritage, dating back to Ed Bandow and William Radue’s first castle during the King Winter Festival in 1933. That inaugural structure used 400 blocks and was lit up to promote Eagle River as the “Lake Capital of the Midwest.” Over the decades, fire chiefs like Charles Hanke refined the designs, and his grandson Jack Thomas kept the tradition alive into the 1980s. Today’s volunteers carry forward that same community spirit, knowing their work draws families from across Wisconsin and beyond.
This isn’t the first time weather has thrown a wrench into the ice castle plans. The structure collapsed in 1937 due to unseasonably warm temperatures, requiring a rebuild that same year. Construction paused entirely during World War II, then resumed in 1948. More recently, a three-year gap stretched from 2014 to 2016 before volunteers managed to rebuild in 2017.
The pattern reveals something larger about life in the Northwoods: our winter traditions depend on cooperative weather, and that cooperation feels less reliable with each passing year. Silver Lake needs to freeze thick and stay cold long enough for safe ice harvesting. When mild spells interrupt that process—or when the ice simply doesn’t form thick enough to start—there’s no backup plan. You can’t truck in ice from somewhere colder or wait until February and hope for better conditions. The window is what it is, and this year, it didn’t open wide enough.
Despite the disappointment, the mood around Eagle River remains cautiously hopeful. Djeladini and others are already looking toward next winter, trusting that conditions will improve and the tradition can resume. The fire department hasn’t abandoned the project—they’re simply waiting for Mother Nature to cooperate again. After 93 years of building ice castles (with occasional weather-related breaks), this community knows how to be patient.
What this year’s cancellation does highlight, though, is the vulnerability of volunteer-driven seasonal traditions in a changing climate. The Northwoods identity is tied to winter—snowmobile derbies, ice fishing, frozen lakes that bring tourists and locals outdoors. When the ice doesn’t cooperate, it’s not just one attraction that suffers; it’s the entire fabric of what makes January and February livable up here. For now, Eagle River waits, watches the thermometer, and hopes for a deep freeze in 2027 that’ll let the ice castle rise again.
Written by
Mike has been coming up or living in the Northwoods since his childhood. He is also an avid outdoorsman, writer and supper club aficionado.
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