What Will Be Lost is a series of reported stories and essays exploring the ways climate change is affecting our relationship to one another, to our sense of place and to ourselves.

Photography by Amy Sacka

ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. Its pitch black at 6 a.m on the shortest day of the year. In the far end of the parking lot behind the St. Clair Shores Library, just north of Detroit, a small group of ice anglers congregates. They are the dedicated and the few, all champing at the bit to get a jump on what is already a late start to the season.

Under a still-rising half-moon, about 20 or so men in full-body coveralls, parkas and hats with huge earflaps trot home-fashioned rigs of equipment on wagons out into the marina docks; ice drills, scoops, spring-loaded tip-ups (akin to a bobber), 5-gallon buckets sloshing with live bait. Their breath forms white clouds in the frigid predawn air.

Fishing on Lake St. Clair is out of the question it isnt frozen. But a brief cold snap over the past few days has finally produced a rime of ice in the canals leading into the lake enough to drill a hole and cast a line through, but not enough to stand on safely. This mornings experienced diehards drill their holes and cast their lines from the docks. Later in the day, the temperature rises to the high 40s, where it stays until the new year.

For most of 72-year-old ice fisherman Tim Sackas life, the ice season began in late December and lasted well into March. These days, he says, its far less predictable.

Back 30 years ago the ice lasted in the canals until April 1, he said. And it seems like its getting later and later for the ice to form. Last year, he says, the ice formed early but lasted only a few weeks.