It’s still dark and well below freezing when Kristie Leavitt pulls to a stop and turns off the ATV’s rumbling motor. For a moment, there’s no sound but the faint whisper of wind sweeping over the ice. The navy blue sky begins to lighten. The cold air burns in her lungs.

Bundled in a hot-pink coat that matches her fishing hut and gear, Leavitt hops down from the driver’s seat onto the 18-inch-thick ice that covers this corner of Munuscong Lake, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Her boots crunch into a thin layer of snow as she begins the ritual of preparing for one of her favorite activities: ice fishing.

Leavitt is among the nearly two million ice anglers in the