Eelpout Festival After Dark

A Closer Look at What Goes on at Eelpout Festival

By Jillian Gandsey and Raielle Peterson

WALKER, Minn. – Eelpout Festival has come and gone for its 32^nd year.  This unique celebration on the ice took place on Leech Lake in Walker, Minn. Feb.18^th-20^th.   The ice events included an Eelpout fishing contest, the polar plunge, a frozen tee-shirt contest and curling with the fish. But the real excitement occurred after dark.

Joe Franek of New Prague drinks a shot of alcohol straight
from an Eelpout's mouth. 

“It’s like Mardi Gras on ice,” said Joe Franek, a very enthused 20-year-old from New Prague.  He and several friends had traveled up for the weekend festivities and gave the impression that they were really enjoying themselves.  Franek shocked a small crowd when he actually took a shot of alcohol out of an Eelpout’s mouth. 

Hundreds of icehouses, trailers, campers and tents covered the lake for the locally famous festival.  Each one filled with an enthusiastic group of people eager for the nighttime celebration to begin.  People of all ages came from all over to enjoy themselves and the festivities.  However, the social activity that really glued everyone together was drinking. 

“I came here purely for drinking,” said Brett Jasperse, a 19-year-old sophomore at BSU.  He and a group of his friends had a tent set up with two beer pong tables inside.  He and the majority of his friends were under the legal drinking age, but they didn’t give the impression that they were trying to hide their beverages. 

Chief Deputy, Erick Hoglund, of the Cass County sheriff’s department stated, “every minor that was drinking and law enforcement had reason to check them, received a ticket for minor consumption.”  He never specified what sort of actions would lead an officer to checking if an intoxicated person was under the legal drinking age.  If the department would have, they would have had an awful lot of minor consumption tickets to give out.

Different groups had their own bars set up for selling things like tee-shirts, sweatshirts and, of course, alcohol.  It was obvious that none of these sites were checking IDs.  One of these camps was named “Camp Lepout.”  Head of the camp, Chuck Christensen, who has only missed 3 years out of the 32, said, “our camp just started out with a hand-printed banner, but I think we have finally got it figured out this year.”  This was one of the camps that happened to be selling alcohol to underage drinkers. 

A sophomore at BSU, Spencer Mickelsen, said, “I bought two 1.75’s of booze and two having cases of beer on Monday.”  According to the CDC Web site having that much alcohol in one weekend is unquestionably considered binge drinking.  Binge drinking is defined a pattern of alcohol consumption that brings the blood alcohol concentration level to 0.08% or more.  To get the average persons blood alcohol concentration level that high it usually takes around 2 drinks in an hourlong period. 


This festival on ice had lots of fun activities, but the one that many people come for is the that can be very dangerous.  The consumption of alcohol if too much is very harmful and if not monitored can be lethal.  This event did have underage and binge drinking.


According to the Cass County sheriff’s department there were 21 arrests at Eelpout Festival and most injuries were related to falls on the ice.  Hoglund also stated that there were other calls relating to Eelpout but none specified to serious injuries. 
   

A heap of garbage was left over from friday nights celebrations.

Photos taken by Jillian Gandsey and Raielle Peterson