During prohibition “rum-runners” traveled across the frozen Detroit River by car to Canada and back with trunk loads of alcohol. Rum-running in Windsor became a very common practice. This led to the rise of mobsters such as the Purple Gang, who regularly traveled across the frozen river. I remember stories about some of those old trucks & cars and their loads of booze being recovered from the river bottom years after breaking through thin ice. My dad used to take my buddies and me ice fishing on the lower end of Lake St. Claire where it feeds into the Detroit River in the late 1940s.
Now with global warming and all, maybe the river doesn’t freeze any more (wink, wink).
Not very often anymore. In fact, there wasn't even any ice on Lake St. Clair for ice fishing last year. Up until last week when we had our deep freeze, they weren't fishing anywhere either and what little ice in and around the marinas there was has likely melted by the warm weather and rain we've had for the past several days.....