Door County gift shop Simply Scandinavian covered with a foot of ice after winter storm
GILLS ROCK - High winds, cold temperatures and Lake Michigan's water covered dockside gift shop Simply Scandinavian in thick ice last weekend on the northern edge of Door County.
The ice buildup is the result of a storm that passed over the region starting on Dec. 23. Wind gusts kicked up water from Lake Michigan and below-zero temperatures caused the droplets to freeze over the building, sheathing the shop in what owner Gretel Sannikas believes is a foot of solid ice.
"It was all beautiful nature's artwork," she said.
Sannikas said Simply Scandinavian's building, which once housed a smoked fish shop and a ferry to Washington Island, is 100 years old. The building hasn't sustained any damage from what she can see, but she hopes above-freezing temperatures coming this week can ease the ice's weight on the roof and walls. "So far, we're doing good," Sannikas said. "This little, brave shop is holding its own. So, let's just keep hope that it stays this way."
The building "has endured a lot of storms before, so let's hope it makes it," Sannikas said.
Still, in her 30 years running the shop, Sannikas has never seen anything like this happen, and neither did many of the shop's followers on the store's Facebook page.
"To get that kind of wind, and the temperatures were only in the mid-teens, so all of that water that got pulled out of the lake that went on top of that building, it pretty much almost instantly froze," said Tasos Kallas, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Green Bay.
Peak wind gusts at Gills Rock were 52 mph on the morning of Christmas Eve, he noted.
Photos and video of the shop's "winter robe" shared to social media, as well as footage of freezing spray coating the shop, have garnered attention across Wisconsin and region.
Sannikas hopes as a result the fishing village of Gills Rock will get "a little bit of attention that it deserves" and tourists will consider visiting — but maybe after the ice melts.
"We're cool enough (for the ice) only during the winter months," she said with a laugh.
Simply Scandinavian, which sells Scandinavian and locally made artwork and gifts, is open from May to the end of October. It is located in the unincorporated town of Gills Rock, within the town of Liberty Grove on the northern edge of mainland Door County.
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Hannah Kirby of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Rebecca Loroff is a breaking and trending news reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. Contact her at 920-907-7801 or rloroff@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Door County gift shop covered with a foot of ice after winter storm
