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I remember paying $22.00 per person what still seems like only yesterday in my rapidly aging mind.

Last year we were paying $70.00 per person. I managed to get out about 6 times so $420.00. I got free parking, transportation to and from the hut, all bait supplied a warm comfortable hut. Didn't have to worry about moving the hut, storing the hut, maintaining a sled, finding bait, cleaning the hut, ice conditions, hauling propane.....As far as I am concerned it's good value for the money spent.

Right! lol

That hat...and what's underneath it ! Nevermind the "rapidly aging mind"...it's the rapidly aging everything else on our bodies that "seems like only yesterday" 😆 Here's one from the same era...no hut, at night, homemade ice picks around the neck...

I did 95% of my ice fishing then and now on my own, it's the way to go. However back in the late 70's my Dad's best friend and our neighbour, whose kids I actually used to baby sit moved up to Pefferlaw and had one of the biggest operations on Lake Simcoe at the time. It was easy to accept the offers he gave me including any hut I wanted and the transportation I needed to get me there.

Most of my life ice fishing was spent out in the open, for some trout lakes for brookies we were close enough to shore to have a fire but that was the exception. We just dressed for the conditions with down parkas, long johns and lined pants, Sorel pac boots, down mitts and those solid fuel stick hand warmers. If you got chilled you went for a walk to warm up. It wasn't until we went to Sunny Hill Resort on Bark lake for a weekend back in the 90's that we ever got the luxury of a shack. Areas like Shirley's Bay on the Ottawa used to have up to 100 permanent shacks each year, now there might be a dozen as most people now use portable pop ups or flip overs.