Bruce’s Wonderful Ice House

He died happy.

That morning, Bruce hauled his new ice house onto the bay.

While building the shed, he remembered Oliver Wendell Holme’s poem, “The Wonderful One Horse Shay.” In the piece, Holmes tells of a deacon who used the finest materials and impeccable craft to make the perfect buggy. The vehicle lasted for one hundred years but fell apart all at once. Here are the last few lines of the poem:

How it went to pieces all at once—

All at once, and nothing first—

Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.

Logic is logic. That’s all I say.

Bruce was a master cabinet maker who selected top-grade plywood, lumber, paint, fasteners, caulk, roofing material, windows, and doors. He also studied ice house designs. Before putting pen to paper and drafting his plans, he researched building strategies and identified excellent construction techniques.

Bruce began building in May and finished it in January. Every evening, he went into the garage and worked with the passion of the possessed. He devoted hours to the smallest detail, like Stradivarius creating his most prized violin. The adage “measure twice – cut once” wasn’t good enough for this ice shanty. Like an obsessed OCD victim, Bruce measured each cut many times using the most accurate steel rule from the best woodworking tool vendor. He drew his lines with a mechanical pencil and a 5mm lead. Then, he cut the wood with his expensive Japanese saw. Each slice was a surgical masterpiece. His joinery was impeccable. He bonded the wood for life.

Before affixing the siding, Bruce wrapped the building in Tyvek, an airtight barrier. He heavily insulated the floor, ceiling, and walls. Thus, even the stiffest north wind could not whistle in Burce’s palace.  

Our builder worked alone in absolute silence, wearing noise-cancelling ear protection. Nothing nor anyone distracted him. He became a Trappist monk, communing with the wood.

On January 15th, he finished.

Bruce was again alone when he towed his magnum opus onto the ice as the sun peaked above the eastern horizon on the 16th. He had called in sick that Tuesday, but in a way, he was ill because he was too excited to work.

It was a frigid 10 degrees below zero. Bruce didn’t care. As Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says, “There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.” Bruce wore the right gear and had planted a top-end propane heater in his shack.

He had placed a PVC pipe through the floor so the outside air would not chill his toes.

He drilled a hole in the ice and fished.

The morning was magic. First came the two-pound perch, one after another. When they stopped hitting, Bruce landed a trophy walleye.

Half an hour later, the most massive musky Bruce had ever met came through the hole, and the ordinarily stoic Bruce jumped for joy, did a jig, and died.

His perfectly airtight ice house perfectly held all the carbon monoxide from his perfect propane heater. 

His family found his frozen corpse with a frozen grin five days later. 

For Bruce, that was the price of perfection.