Out on Albert Lea Lake there is a city on the grow. Each day, more and more keep coming to set up shop. They are ice fishermen.

Rolling or sliding their boxy houses onto the frozen lake, they set their place in the pack. In each house there are holes in the floor, through which they auger through the ice making a fishing hole.

A walk through the village on ice gives a sense of community that transcends that of a solid-ground neighborhood. There is much more talking between neighbors and everyone shares the same ‘land.’

Men with weathered Norwegian faces, red with cold and full of smiling teeth, sit in circles with two-to-three-foot ice fishing rods dangling lines through the ice.

&uot;I call it ‘Little Albert Lea,’&uot; said Ray Landry of Albert Lea. &uot;Out here we consider each other family.&uot;

Landry sat with three others in a circle, each with lines through their holes. He said when it is warm, people sit outside of their is houses to be with friends. Ice fishing is a winter sport to some, but to many it is a social gathering.

&uot;I’ve met a lot of friends out here,&uot; Landry continued. &uot;It’s easy to do that because we all have a common interest &045; catching the big fish.&uot;

The friendships are obvious. Groups of men sit in circles throughout the village.

Even fishermen from Austin are welcome.

&uot;People here are friendly to all,&uot; said Mike Williams, who came from Austin with his son and grandson. &uot;I’ve got a sign up with my address and nobody has said anything to me yet,&uot; he said. laughing.

Slow fishing seems to draw friends together.

&uot;When things get slow and the fish don’t bite, people get restless and start walking around,&uot; said Butch Laack of Austin.

Laack has been coming to Albert Lea Lake for six years and says he has come to make friendships with his neighbors. &uot;Many people set up in the same places each year. After a while you get to have a neighborhood,&uot; he said.

&uot;Each time you come out you see different friends,&uot; Laack said. &uot;Some are people you see all the time. But many times you see people you haven’t seen in years.&uot;

The long-standing friendships and neighborhoods even begin to govern themselves after a while.

&uot;This is my yard,&uot; said Jim Malepsy of Albert Lea, pointing around the village. He complained that people were littering. &uot;A couple of people can ruin it for everyone.&uot;

Malepsy said that the ice-fishing village is his community through the winter. &uot;The folks out here are great,&uot; he said.

Malepsy, a white-haired man, has been coming out to the lake since he was a child. He says that the winters of Albert Lea ice fishing are a great asset to the city.

&uot;It doesn’t get much better than we have it out here,&uot; he said. &uot;I can’t think of a better way to spend the winter.&uot;