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By MIKE LANGE GREENVILLE - With temperatures expected to soar into the high 40s and low 50s this week, ice-out on Moosehead Lake might be earlier than usual this year. On the other hand, it may not. Nature has a habit of fooling even the old-timers who like to guess when the ice will leave Maine's largest lake each year. The person who makes the right guess this spring will win a Road Trip grill donated by Coleman in a contest sponsored by the Moosehead Lake Region Chamber of Commerce and Indian Hill Trading Post. Official ice-out is determined when the Katahdin steamship can safely travel from the East Cove to Northeast Carry. But before the classic ship leaves port for the first time each spring, pilot Roger Currier flies over the route to assure that the route is ice-free. Currier and his family are spending the winter in Ossipee, N.H. this year, but he plans to return to Greenville during the last week of April. "The warming trend is definitely here," Currier said last week, "but it may take some time to reach Moosehead Lake. I think mid-May is a safe bet for ice- out." Nevertheless, a prolonged warming trend would move the date closer, Currier added. "Most of the ice on the lakes is pretty crunchy right now. It's not solid, so it could go faster," he said. According to records kept at the Moosehead Lake Region Chamber of Commerce, the earliest recorded ice-out date was April 14, 1945 and the latest was May 29, 1878. There was almost a month's difference between ice-out in 2006 (April 19) and 2007 (May 12). But between 2003 and 2005, all three ice-out dates were during the first week of May. A rather unusual ice-out contest during the 1990s even convinced the New York Times to do a feature story on the tradition. During that era, Henry Gilbert, the owner of Jamieson's Market, used to haul a snowmobile - minus its engine - out on the lake and tie it to a buoy. Customers would place a $1 bet on when it would sink to the bottom of the lake. The year the Times did the story (1997), the sled sunk on May 8. The closest guesser was Ariel Tosi, who won $27. She didn't pick the exact date, but she was close enough to win.
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