Ice fishing in Saskatchewan can sometimes be interesting, especially when it involves a 1997 Volkswagen.

Yorkton Towing was called on to recover this vehicle for SGI from Good Spirit Lake, approximately 50 km northwest of Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

The infamous "fish" went down during Christmas vacation and was approximately three miles north of Good Spirit Provincial Park, and a quarter mile from shore.

This recovery presented a major problem, because of underground springs in the lake which keep the ice thin, and make it impossible to put any kind of recovery vehicle on it. Also, it had snowed two and a half feet before we got the go-ahead for the recovery.

The decision was made to recover the vehicle using a lifting device constructed by Vista Towing of Battleford, SK. A single frame consisting of two hand winches would be put on the ice over the car, which would then be lifted out and winched to shore.

Finding the car was a bit of a challenge, and as shown here, all we could find was the antenna sticking out of the ice. It took two days of searching with shovels and metal detectors to find it.

Once found, a hole was opened using chain saws and power augers. The ice had to be lifted out for the safety of the divers.

The car had frozen into the ice, which was between three and six inches thick. The shallow water made it difficult for the divers to hook up the chains for the recovery.

But once the chains were in place, we hooked up and slowly winched out the big "fish".

Halfway out we stopped and opened the door to let out the water and make the vehicle lighter.

When the fish was out of the water, it was ready to be winched the 1,000 feet to shore, where it was loaded onto a flat deck and transported to Yorkton.

We want to thank all those involved who made this recovery a success, especially Dave Washburn from Vista Towing, who lent us a hand with his "contraption" to make the recovery safe and possible.