Riding on thin ice
To get to school in Bayfield, the 15 or so students who live on Madeline Island in far northern Wisconsin have to get across 2.5 miles of Lake Superior. Normally, they take a ferry, but for a few weeks in the winter and spring, that’s a problem. There’s too much ice for a ferry, but not enough ice to support vehicles on an ice road. So, The Wisconsin State Journal says, the students are transported across the lake on a windsled. The article says the island had a sled specially built in 2002 to transport large groups of people. It uses an air propeller to cut across slush, snow and ice.
The ride, or slide, is expensive–the district spent $21,000 on the sled in 2005-06. And because the sled transportation is technically not a bus route, the costs are not eligible for state reimbursement.
So the state legislature this year has allocated $35,000 for “transporting pupils over ice.”
