Warming Hut rescued from river

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This article was published 05/02/2016 (3743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A warming hut on the Red River was surrounded by melting ice Friday and had to be moved to a more stable location at The Forks ice skating trail.

The melt site was cordoned off, water clearly visible in deep slushy puddles as mild winter temperatures around -7 C played havoc with Winnipeg’s reputation for ice cold temperatures. Again.

The event briefly made Twitter, with a mild buzz and several shots of the site showed up on media sites.

.@eascpaul don’t worry, the warming hut is okay and was getting relocated. @RRMTrail crews are always monitoring ice to make sure its safe

— The Forks (@TheForks) February 5, 2016

Other nearby huts at the location near the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers remained in place and the wet spot clearly didn’t bother skaters or curlers who were setting up a rink not more than a few metres away.

“This is normal,” scoffed Sean Crawford with the Manitoba Heart and Stroke Foundation, which sponsors the curling bonspiel in the middle of the frozen Red River every winter for a weekend as a major fundraising event.

The curling rink was being prepped by Forks crews just metres away.

“Last year, there was running water, not 30 feet away,” Crawford said, brushing off talk of hazardous ice conditions.

“We wouldn’t be out here if The Forks hadn’t done its safety checks,” added fellow organizer Michael Thompson.

Families with small children skated by the wet patch without a concern.

“No worries. The ice is pretty thick,” said Tanya Nims, who posed with her two children at a snow sculpture designed this year with Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq. The sculpture was a stone’s throw from the wet patch.

Forks crews rescued it Friday morning before it could melt into the slush around it.

“The hut is The Hole Idea, it is from last year’s competition,” said Chelsea Thomson, a spokeswoman from The Forks by email later in the day.

The national historic site is known for its ice skating trail and an international competition that draws architects to design and build warming huts along the trail every winter.

The hut will find a new home, Thomson said.

“We are still determining where it’s going to go. Right now it’s just further down the Red River,” Thomson said.

A mild fall that lingered into early winter delayed skating by several weeks on the river at The Forks. It took a week of -20 C temperatures in January for the ice to freeze solid enough to create the skating trail and allow for the construction of the warming huts and skaters have been using the trail steadily since then.