Stab Em' and Eat Em'

Kicking off the tour part of the Fur Hat Ice Tour, Janis Putelis travels to Whitefish Lake, Minnesota and meets up with local wild foods expert Mark Norquist who runs the Modern Carnivore website. In this episode, Mark introduces Janis to dark house ice spearing, a hallowed tradition for winter food gathering in the upper Midwest. Mark and Janis cut a large hole in the ice and then set up a darkened shelter over top of it. They sit at the edge of the hole, holding long handled tridents and waiting for fish to swim through. When the fish do appear, Janis has to be quick and steady of hand if he wants to successfully spear the lake whitefish and northern pike that they’re targeting. Finally, chef Lukas Leaf joins them and cooks whitefish cakes out on the ice.