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JUNE 14: Flag Day is parade day PAGE 12A
June 16
Old ice boats: not for faint of heart BY DEBRA NEUTKENS EDITOR
When Fletcher Driscoll was 12, his life flashed before his eyes as he headed for an ice heave on White Bear Lake. He was piloting an 18-foot Skeeter, a Formula One race car on blades. The bank of ice loomed as the young boat driver rushed towards it. "I will never forget it," said the Dellwood sailor, now 86. "I was probably going about 75 mph. I didn't see this ice heave. I thought, 'I'm dead. I'm going to crash into this and not come out alive.' If you turn an ice boat upwind, you capsize. If you turn downwind, you accelerate; I would have hit it even harder. I barely missed it. God saved me." The experience has never left Driscoll, who called ice boating a rite of passage for a boy growing up on the water. That same boat, built post WWII at Johnson Boat Works, will be on display at the 14th Annual Manitou Days Boat Show. It almost wasn't. Owned by Driscoll's late uncle, Bob Power, the vintage ice boat had long been abandoned in some woods near Amery, Wisconsin. Animals had their way with the boat, feasting on the wood until it was almost unrecognizable. "My cousin called and asked if I wanted it," Driscoll said. "It was in hideous shape; completely rotten through and through. No one in their right mind would restore this. The only reason I did was because I have an emotional attachment to the boat." When he brought the project home, fellow ice boaters urged him to burn it. "I said, 'no, we can't really do that,'" Driscoll recalled. Then three people "put up their hands" and agreed to help in the restoration: John Taylor, Steve Wiberg and Steve Johnson. Steve is the grandson of Johnson Boat Works founder J.O. Johnson, a Norwegian immigrant who built his business on the shore of White Bear Lake. The Skeeter was built for Steve Johnson's uncle Iver Johnson, J.O.'s son, around 1945. Bob Power, a Birch-
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Steve Wiberg, Steve Johnson and Fletcher Driscoll pose with the 18-foot Skeeter ice boat they restored and rebuilt with John Taylor (not pictured).
wood resident, bought it from Iver shortly after. "The story goes that it scared Iver," according to Driscoll. This year's Boat Show is featuring several antique ice boats built at Johnson Boat Works, which ceased operations in 1998. The property sold to the city a year later and the buildings were bulldozed in 2013 to make way for the Boatworks Commons apartments. Show coordinator Pat Oven, also in his 14th year, wanted the focus to be on the rich history of White Bear's boat builders, both Johnson and Amundson SEE BOAT SHOW, PAGE 8A
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The Phantom is the A-scow of iceboats. Built by Johnson Boat Works, it will be on display at the Manitou Days boat show.
residents warned to lock doors after string of home burglaries, vehicle thefts BY SARA MARIE MOORE VADNAIS HEIGHTS EDITOR
The Ramsey County Sheriff's Office has seen an increase in home and vehicle burglary within the last weeks in Vadnais Heights, White Bear Township, North Oaks and Shoreview. The common middle-of-the-night tactic being used by a group of perhaps 20 suspects is to enter a vehicle, use the garage door opener to get inside the garage and then attempt
to enter the home through a service door, said Sheriff Bob Fletcher. “There is a group from Minneapolis that has been circulating the metro area using the major highways and freeways and then hitting homes within one mile of a major highway,” Fletcher explained. Over the last few weeks, four occupied home burglaries have occurred in the area along I-35E. With three search warrants, law enforcement found several suspects June 6, mostly juveniles, in Minneapolis. Numerous items that appeared to
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be stolen were found. They are expected to be charged; officers are still looking for more suspects. Fletcher reminds residents to lock their vehicle doors, keep their garage door opener out of sight in their vehicles, and lock all doors to their homes. The suspects have been quickly entering homes and stealing purses and wallets in close proximity to service doors. Victims are often sleeping further back in the house and might not hear anything. “At a minimum, hide your remote
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in your car,” Fletcher advised. “Don't have it clipped onto the visor. They are not going to spend much time looking for your remote.” North Oaks resident Thomas Keller happened to be watching TV when he heard a loud thud about 1:30 a.m. May 20. When the sound didn't repeat itself, he went back to sleep. In the morning, he awoke to deputies at his door and his 2017 Chevrolet Silverado gone. Fortunately, deputies had
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SEE BURGLARIES, PAGE 9A
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