4 vehicles go through ice on Last Mountain Lake

At least four vehicles have gone through the ice on Last Mountain Lake in the last few weeks.

Tyler Temple owns TRK Towing, based in Lumsden, and he said the company has been called to pull three pickup trucks and an SUV out of the frozen lake recently.

He admits this scenario is “extremely weird for January, but that goes with the extremely weird weather we’re getting.”

Luckily he said all of the drivers and passengers have been able to escape safely.

Lumsden’s TRK Towing has pulled four vehicles out of the ice on Last Mountain Lake in recent weeks. (Tyler Temple TRK Towing/Facebook)

“There has been some wet people and cold people, but other than that, just pride and egos have been hurt,” he said.

Temple added that the ice is naturally thin in certain places, so knowledge of the lake itself is key to staying safe while driving out to ice fish.

“If you’re not familiar with the lake that you’re fishing, you shouldn’t be driving on it. You need to know where the points and the sand bars are, you need to have some knowledge on ice to use and obviously know not to drive across one  or near one, you go a long ways around them,” Temple commented.

He also warned against driving out on the ice in the dark.

Temple explains it can be a challenge to yank vehicles out of the ice after they break through. He also won’t send his tow trucks out onto the ice, instead they hitch them up with cables to pull from shore.

“The white truck that we pulled out, the Dodge half-tonne, it was a bit of an issue. I think the lake wanted to keep that one,” he joked.

Temple said the company had to call for back-up from an excavator once the tow truck pulled it closer to shore.

“There was a big hunk of ice stuck under the front of the vehicle and once we got it into shallower water, that big hunk of ice hooked underneath the ice on the lake and it just anchored the front of the vehicle inside the lake so we weren’t able to pull it up onto the ice, we were able to get the back end up but not the front,” he explained.

Temple hopes he has seen the last of vehicles going through the ice, but with the weather set to warm up this weekend he has a feeling it could happen again.

Lumsden’s TRK Towing has pulled four vehicles out of the ice on Last Mountain Lake in recent weeks. (Tyler Temple TRK Towing/Facebook)