Yes, sometimes it’s a real drag for Frank Siepker when he has to fix something on the Christmas tree he has floating out on Big Glen Lake. Usually, he throws on his waders and slogs out into the freezing water to address the problem.

But sometimes it’s quite a treat, especially when it’s calm enough to cruise out there in a kayak. It’s during this time – often joined by his son or daughter – that he feels transported into another universe.  

“The most amazing thing about this whole experience is when you’re out there in the dark, in the winter, when it’s cold and dead calm, and it’s a clear sky, or maybe some clouds with an awesome moon behind them,” he tells The Ticker. “It’s the most unreal environment – just incredibly beautiful and surreal out there. The cool, crisp air, dead calm water and the tree lit up.”

Siepker, an electrical engineer, is now on his 11th year of floating a tree on a small aluminum boat off his home on Big Glen near the narrows. It’s become a beloved tradition for locals and visitors, all of whom admire the simple beacon floating in the inky darkness.

“It's universally accepted as a cool thing, which is so unique in today's world,” Siepker says.

The tradition began when Siepker and family, who love Christmas decorations, realized that no one could really see the decorations at their home, which is oriented to face the lake.

“We were talking about how much we enjoy driving around during Christmas time and seeing people's lights outside, but with our home the way it is, it's not real practical for us to decorate the roadside,” he says. “So then it became: How can we decorate the lake side so it's meaningful and valuable to us, but also so that other people can drive around to see Christmas stuff?”

So Siepker hatched a plan to float some decorations out in a boat, where they would be visible from the highly traveled narrows bridge. The first year featured an old artificial tree, a Santa and some other items, but by the second year he simplified things with the “classic and classy” beauty of a single, lit (and this time, real) tree. It’s remained the same ever since.

There’s a lot more work than one might imagine getting this tree set up and maintained throughout the winter. The tree sits in custom-made aluminum frame in the boat, which is moored in a few feet of water (the lake is shallow there for several hundred feet out).

“We have three deep cycle marine batteries in the boat that provide the baseline power for this, and there’s a digital timer in there that turns them on and off, so we're only powering the lights when it's dark and people are awake: sunset to 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. to about 8 a.m.,” he says.

The batteries don’t last an entire Thanksgiving-to-New Year’s season, so he generally has to go out there at least once for a recharge. High efficiency lighting means less drain, or he’d be out there more.

But batteries aren’t the only things that need attention. The setup is “battered and bashed” on a regular basis, and its various components are often damaged.

“It’s a violent environment. It’s cold, and when the wind blows, it’s a force to be reckoned with,” he says. “We’ve had two years where the whole assembly tipped over, capsized, and sunk, and we’ve had to rescue it and rebuild everything…One year the mooring hardware failed and it drifted across the lake and got stuck on the other side in an ice floe.”

The silver lining is that each mishap usually leads to some sort of improvement or innovation. Siepker makes yearly tweaks to his setup, with each configuration faring a little bit better than the last.

“You learn from your failures,” Siepker says. “If you don’t, you aren’t trying hard enough.”

One thing he learned is to be a bit more proactive about severe weather forecasts, especially as it relates to howling wind. If he can get ahead of it, he’ll bring the boat into shore and secure it. But it’s not always possible to get the jump on Mother Nature.

 “That’s been a big help in the catastrophic days, but it’s still a real juggling act, because it you don’t catch it before the wind starts, there’s no way I’m walking out there, taking it off the mooring and managing to hold on to it in 25 mile an hour winds,” he says. “So if I can get it, great. If not, it rides it out. Sometimes it survives and sometimes it's upside down, capsize and sunk, but we have the technology and the grit to get through it.”

Owing to its size and depth, Big Glen almost never freezes completely before the New Year. But ice is still very much a factor as it accumulates on the boat. 

"It gets encapsulated in ice to the point to where in order to to move it or recover it I've got to use a sledgehammer pound ice off of it," he said. "So it's lot of extreme things. You watch Deadliest Catch and they're out there pounding ice off the boat. Smaller scale, same problem."

Siepker has toyed with the idea of putting more things out in the water like he did years ago, but for now, he plans to stay the course. 

"We've looked at different opportunities, but it's too classic to change," he said. "We're going to keep it simple for now."