A Conflict of Nations

There are awesome stories of battles between Dakota and Anishanabe (Ojibwe) tribes along this lakeshore. In 1795, a small war party of Anishanabe made an attack on a villiage of Dakotas near the outlet of West Battle Lake. The Dakota greatly outnumbered them, and the small war party was driven into a swamp. After a long fight, the Anishanabe chief Uk-ke-waus ordered his exhausted warriors to retreat under the leadership of a young chief named Wenonga, who was badly wounded. The older chief and his three sons remained behind and fought a holding action until they were killed. Only a third of the 50-member Anishanabe group survived. The tribe renamed the lake “Ish-quan-a-de-win-ing,” meaning “where but few survived.” A platted area of lakeshore (Wenonga Beach) in the city limits of Battle Lake is named in his honor.

The last great fight occurred about 1850. It began along a winding creek connecting East and West Battle Lakes, and ended as the Dakota retreated westward to the present site of the city of Battle Lake. After this defeat, the Dakota moved west and no longer troubled their ancient adversaries, the Anishanabe.

This statue of Wenonga stands in Halverson Park looking northeasterly across the lake toward his old battle site.

Ice Harvest

Harvesting ice was a difficult job, involving many laborious steps. First, the workers waited, usually until January when the ice froze to about two feet thick. Ice harvesters used several tools to do their job: ice saws, ice poles, ice tongs, metal conveyor belts, axes, and machines. Draft horses were used to pull the scoring machine and were attached to the hook that brought the ice to the conveyor belt. The horses would not slip on the ice because they wore special shoes called caulks, which had spikes on the bottom.

The workers scored (marked) the ice and cut it into chunks with a special tool called an ice saw. Even after the invention of the power saw, a certain amount of hand sawing was needed. The power saw did not cut all the way down to the water, but only about 6 or 8 inches into the ice. Another tool, the ice pole, was used to pull the ice blocks to shore.

Workers also used the poles to push the ice onto a gas-powered conveyor belt which took the blocks to the icehouse on the shore of the lake. In the icehouse, the blocks were covered with sawdust as insulation to keep them from melting. From the icehouse, the blocks were loaded onto insulated horse-drawn wagons and delivered to customers by the “ice man.” Blocks for home use measured 12-by-18 inches and weighed about 150 pounds. They were used in iceboxes, the only form of home refrigeration in those days.