An ice shanty (also called an ice shack, ice house, fishing shanty, fish house, fish coop, bobhouse, ice hut, or darkhouse) is a portable shed placed on a frozen lake to provide shelter during ice fishing. They can be as small and cheap as a plastic tarp draped over a frame of two-by-fours, or as expensive as a small cabin with heat, bunks, electricity and cooking facilities.
More durable ice houses are generally left on a lake for the duration of the ice fishing season. Lighter cheaper versions can collapse into a package to be moved from lake to lake during the season.
Many northern communities have developed bodies of laws about the operation of ice shanties - frequently including dates by which they must be removed, even if the ice can still hold them.
Read more about Ice Shanty: Folklore
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or shanty:
““A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth”—
Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“You can’t appreciate home till you’ve left it, money till it’s spent, your wife till she’s joined a woman’s club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)