Whenever Ed Hewitt III is out for a self-described “mini adventure” walk or ride, he tries to remember to bring along his camera. “Every day I see something that would be a great picture, a wonderful image—and of course, no camera,” he says. But all that changed in mid-March last year.
He was walking across Echo Bay to Big Island just before ice-out and he knew it was going to be a special outing. “I didn’t know what I would see or be able to capture, but I always seem to find something that intrigues me,” he says.
Suddenly, he heard the unique sound of boat blades on the ice and saw a mass of ice boats in the distance. He says he saw the boats “closing in on me, then there they were: in front of me, around me, close to me and gone,” he says. He had enough time to snap the image Buzzed by a Skeeter in March before the boats vanished as quickly as the ice and snow that winter.
Hewitt loves living near the lake in all seasons, especially in winter. “Lake Minnetonka is not just a big lake with numerous bays and million-dollar homes surrounding it,” he says. “It's not just pretty sunsets bouncing off the lake and big boats partying off of Big Island. It's the total package of the senses. This picture represents another side of the big lake,” appreciated by people who grew up on the lake and appreciate its uniqueness year-round.
