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Although now officially frozen over, this photograph of the Riverdale bluffs area shows extensive open water on Lake Sakakawea on Jan. 13. Lake Sakakawea was declared frozen on Jan. 24, the latest date in history.
An all too typical winter in North Dakota is when snow piles up on lakes already covered by a thick ice pack, so much so that ice anglers need to use extensions on their augers to punch through two to three feet of ice. Sometimes freeze-up comes early in the winter season too, adding days and weeks to a long season and threatening the dissolved oxygen content vital to life under the ice. Winter kills of fish often follows.