When is it safe to walk on a frozen lake?

[Youngblood]

We are at the usa/canada border, and snow mobilers sometimes play a game called drunk chicken. It's called that because most sober have enough sense not to do it.

There is a major river that separates us geographically. At night on really cold nights the open water freezes over and creates a temporary ice bridge linking us that can be crossed only by fast moving snowmachines. It unfreezes by the next afternoon. Walking you'd most certainly go in.

The thrill is in the sounds of it cracking below you and breaking up behind you as you go. It's about a mile across and deep, a shipping channel. You can go under at any time and some do and die, but most make it. You can't take the same route as the person before you as it often opens up immediately or now is too weak there.

I've done it. Once. Drunk. It made me instantly sober. Never again. The shitting of pants has never been my strong suit.

So Canadians are truly desperate to get across the border then? Is it to escape the socialism and national mediocrity?

Our beer and liquor stores close too early.