The term “ice boat” can conjure many different images - giant ice breakers with reinforced hulls, sailing ice yachts built to glide over ice, rowing boats equipped with ropes to be dragged over obstacles, or nimble kayaks to dodge sea ice. In the American Midwest, an ice boat may instead be fitted with a device like this – an ice scratcher, essentially an outboard motor equipped with a toothed drive wheel. Unlike their sailing or icebreaking cousins, the ice scratcher boat has become a specialized tool for ice fishing.
Scratcher boats are also called “picker boats” or “chipper boats” as the teeth scratch, pick, and chip the ice as the motor spins the wheel, propelling the boat forward. To slide smoothly, the boats typically have a flat bottom with a reinforced hull or metal runners like those of a snowmobile. Much variation exists due to their homebuilt nature. Scavenged engines with a sprocket or saw blade provided the base of the scratcher. A few commercial brands, such as Stoddard, produced ice scratchers, but the hazardous nature and liability of the machines likely restricted the market. Home-brewed scratchers were not held to such safety requirements. At the same time, scratchers provide their own form of security; if the ice were to break, the boat would prevent the angler from falling in.
Scratchers saw popularity around the 1960s-1970s along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. However, the idea of a boat propelled by a spiked drive wheel is much older than that. One early attempt was by Norman Wiard of Wisconsin, who exhibited his model locally as a possible winter ferry. His design was met with much excitement and intrigue. However, according to the February 1st, 1860 edition of the Dubuque Herald, the invention remained untested and, to the writer, simply “a humbug.” Damage during early trials prevented the boat from even starting a course between cities, and the unused prototype became defunct with the addition of more railways across the Mississippi (Telegraph Herald, April 7, 1963). Unlike the 20th-century version of the ice scratcher, Wiard’s boat was intended to be larger, like a modest paddleboat with a giant sprocket instead of a paddlewheel (Telegraph Herald, April 7, 1963). While we do not know how much influence, if any, Wiard’s design had on the ice scratchers of today, we do know these machines display the ingenuity of the people of the Midwest and the Mississippi River Valley.
This scratcher was made by Dubuquer Donald “Don” F. Ege (1921-2011) likely around the 1970s. He rigged the scratcher with a 1966 6hp Briggs & Stratton horizontal shaft gasoline engine, likely scavenged from a minibike or go-kart. Don later sold the scratcher to Earl Berendes of St. Donatus, who donated it to the Museum in 2003.