Duluth Rescuer Turns Ice Disaster Into Hope-Filled Novel

When 26 ice fishers needed rescuing from a broken ice floe on Lake Superior in 2021, Alex Messenger didn't respond to the call. But the Duluth rescue squad volunteer couldn't stop thinking about the last survivor, who walked alone toward Wisconsin, hoping the ice beneath him would hold.

That moment became "The Ice on the Lake," Messenger's first novel released this week. The story follows Hugh, an elderly widower whose solo fishing trip turns into a days-long fight for survival when his ice chunk breaks free and drifts away from shore.

Messenger, 38, knows survival intimately. At 17, he survived a grizzly bear attack that left him certain he was about to die. He detailed that experience in his nonfiction book "The Twenty-Ninth Day."

"I was very certain I was about to die," Messenger said. "In a lot of ways, I got a second chance."

That perspective shaped his novel. Most of the 230-page book unfolds inside Hugh's head as he battles to stay alive while reckoning with his estranged adult children and choices made after losing his wife young.

Messenger's day job in communications at the University of Minnesota Duluth complements his rescue squad work. Both experiences gave him insight into "helping people while they're going through the worst day of their life."

The author scribbled his first notes about the ice rescue on February 8, 2021, on the back of a calendar page. The actual rescue happened the next day, showing how quickly the idea took hold.

Why This Inspires

Messenger calls writing fiction a form of "discovery" that let him explore survival without making it about himself. He drew inspiration from Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," creating his own spare tale of an elderly man alone in grave danger.

The novel became a way to examine both the practical side of survival and the deeper questions it raises. Messenger's bear attack taught him to always carry bear spray, but it also gave him "this strong sense of purpose and appreciation for the life I had after."

He admits sending his brain to those dark places wasn't always easy. But fiction gave him freedom that nonfiction couldn't, especially the idea that a book's meaning doesn't end until readers finish it and decide what it means to them.

Whether Hugh gets his second chance remains for readers to discover. But Messenger already knows writing the novel gave him something valuable: a way to honor both the rescuers he works alongside and the survivors who keep fighting when everything seems lost.

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