Lake Champlain ice flows are legendary. But 2023-4 did not deliver the shore-to-shore ice that during our early Rosslyn winters and springs were as predictable as months of snow. And, in many respects, that’s a relief given the currently heightened water level which has been hovering around 98.5’ above NGVD 1929 for about a week.
For context, that’s about 22” or so about the historic mean water level for this time of year and almost 24” above this date last year.
While March 24 isn’t exactly beyond boathouse flood concern stage — far from it — it’s unlikely that we’ll see the sort of ice documented in the photo at tbd top of this post. The water level looks pretty close to that 2011 snapshot, but the ice? Since most of Lake Champlain never froze solid this winter, icebergs grinding against Rosslyn’s waterfront and dock house pier won’t trigger the anxiety we felt in the early days.
After all, our boathouse was described by the inspector thus:
The boathouse was in rough shape. “One ice flow from a watery grave…”
(Source: Leisure Time: Top 5)
Did the inspector really write that in his inspection report? Say it to me in person? Or is that just my poet’s penchant for rephrasing?
I’m honestly no longer certain, but I certainly wove the ominous observation into plenty of posts. Clearly that was the gist, however he articulated it.
It’s immensely satisfying to see that there are so few differences between today’s pier, dock house, and gangway (to shore) and their earlier iteration… Preserving this +/-125 year old Essex monument is a perennial challenge. Engineering and construction location hurdles for “a boathouse that was one ice flow away from a watery grave” were not insignificant.
(Source: Keuhlen Family at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951)
Although not in quotation marks in this next excerpt, it was clearly a verbatim refrain of the phrase that echoed through my home renovation nightmares back in those early years.
Long deferred maintenance, decades overdue… [including] a boathouse that was one ice flow away from a watery grave… The current owner had dedicated the better part of four decades of his life, four decades — full time — to renovating Rosslyn and yet it was disintegrating around him.
(Source: Totally Incompatible)
The inauspicious coincidence of high lake level, massive hunks of jagged ice propelled by wind and waves, and an at-that-time-teetering historic building precariously perched atop a failing pier extending out into Blood’s Bay worried Susan and me. It worried the inspector. It worried the engineers who devised a miraculous solution. Solution in theory. Solution in search of implementation…
Not optimal conditions for rehabilitating an historic building on a failing pier in Lake Champlain! Especially restructuring the pier itself and integrating a sophisticated engineering solution to the whimsical physics of a building that the inspector had warned me was “one ice flow away from a watery grave”.
(Source: Boathouse Restructuring)
At last that agonizing wait remitted and a secure, durable rehabilitation was completed. Relief!
Today we recognize our good fortune. We thank the many — from engineers and permitting authorities, contractors and builders, property caretakers and friends — who have ensure Rosslyn’s historic dock house endures. And we thank the weather gods who (climate change concerns aside) have spared our boathouse from the ruthless ravages of ice flows. Thank you all!
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