No ice castle

Eagle River will not see its iconic ice castle built for 2026. In a social media post Monday morning, the Eagle River Fire Department stated the build won’t be possible this year due to weakness in the ice.

The department has been monitoring the ice thickness on Silver Lake, where blocks are pulled from, and indicated that recent warm snaps and rainy weather has done too much damage to reach the minimum thickness needed to pull blocks.

“The layer of slush did freeze, but that ice is very rough, uneven and brittle,” the post stated. “We would have to shave at least the top 1- to 2-inches off each block to ensure that we are using strong, solid ice. That means we would need at least 14 inches of ice and we still only have 10.5 to 11 inches of ice.

Unfortunately, with the warmer temperatures in the forecast, ice will not be made.”

The very cold temperatures seen in early December boded well for the build, with fire Chief Michael Anderson indicating they planned to pay homage to the 25th anniversary of 9-11 by building replicas of the Twin Towers.

A warm-up arrived shortly before Christmas, bringing with it rainy conditions that created slush on the lakes. That was topped off with heavy, wet snowfall which insulated the ice from freezing properly even though temperatures dropped over the last week.

Despite assistance from local resident Mark Bugni to clear the snow off the lake in hopes of allowing a solid freeze, another warm-up was forecast for the northern part of the state this week, ultimately deciding the fate of the ice castle.

“We would like to thank everyone that offered their time, equipment and materials in preparation and we look forward to trying again next year,” the department said.