Winter sparkle

Morristown area resident and licensed pyrotechnician Tim Boese typically takes charge of two fireworks “shoots” for Waseca each year: the fourth of July and Sleigh and Cutter displays. Both are on Clear Lake,  but the meaning of the word “on” changes drastically from one show to the other.

The Fourth of July display is fired from two specially-constructed pontoons. The elements of the display–a combination of shells and pyrotechnic “cakes”--are put in place and wired on dry land. He and his crew face the perpetual problems of summer, heat and mosquitoes, while spending hours ensuring everything is in place. As evening approaches, the pontoons are towed to the center of the lake, where the night’s display is fired using an electronic system. One of the biggest safety concerns is making sure no boaters position themselves too close to the pontoons.

For the Sleigh and Cutter display, neither heat nor mosquitoes even come to mind. No need for pontoons, either: Boese and his helpers drive directly to the firing site, a patch of ice out in the middle of the lake which, this year, had to be opened up in advance using a snowplow.

Workers had as much space as they needed to position the variety of self-contained fireworks display “cakes” and the free-standing “mortars” used to fire shells. Unlike in summer, they lit some of the fuses using handheld torches, since it was simply a matter of walking right up to them.

In place of summer’s demons, they had winter’s: slippery ice and frigid cold. The pyrotechnicians were able to dress for the one, and walk carefully for the other.

A safety concern in past years has been people walking out too close to the display–either directly from shore, or out of the fishhouses located widely across the lake’s surface. This year’s frigid temperatures and deep snow were sufficient deterrents for that, though.

Boese mentions two aspects of the winter shoot which help make it special.

The snow–and there was plenty of it Saturday night–reflects back the light of the fireworks, casting everything with a luminescent glow. It also muffles, evens softens, the sounds of the exploding shells.

Perhaps his favorite aspect, though, is the much-changed time frame.  He and his crew were set up by 6:30 and had finished firing by 7:30. They had the worksite cleared up and were driving homeward by 8 p.m.: in summer, they would still have been two hours from firing.