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“We found a large patch of nice smooth ice over towards the RCHC [Royal Canadian Yacht Club] quite close to the shore along Snake Island,” Mr. Farquhar wrote Monday. “It was very solid — probably six inches at minimum. A group of us had a nice skate there this afternoon on a brilliant sunny day. The iceboat was out sailing as well.”

On Friday I buy a $7 ticket on the 12:30 p.m. boat from the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal to Ward’s Island. The little Ongiara, the only ferry that runs through winter, labours to plow through a channel of ice chunks. Mr. Farquhar meets me at the dock. We walk to his cozy island home to pick up his family. Then we walk west across Ward’s Island to Algonquin Island.

Martha Farquhar McDonnell, the couple’s daughter, recites, as we walk, lessons her teachers at the Island School taught her in preparation for school skates on the lake.

“They said, ‘If you fall through, wait until you sink. Then push yourself off the bottom,’ ” she recalls. ” ‘If you are underwater, don’t look for a light patch. That means it’s ice. Look for a dark spot, which is open water.’ ”

We pass a group of boys playing shinny on the island lagoon, a game they call, “gooney.”

Arriving at the lake shore, we sit in the snow to lace up.

We each carry a hockey stick. No one brought a puck. The sticks are to help us, should we fall through. But there is little danger: I can see along a seam that the ice is 30 cm thick.

Around their knecks, Mr. Farquhar and Mr. Hnatuk wear home-made ice rescue picks with wooden handles, useful for slamming into the ice when you fall through, to haul yourself out.