After searching through the night, the U.S. Coast Guard resumed its search this morning for what might be a person or people on a moving piece of ice about four miles from the McQuade Small Craft Harbor on Scenic Highway 61 north of Duluth.
A Coast Guard helicopter and a C-130 airplane flown by the Canadian Coast Guard criss-crossed the area of the lake but did not find anything, Petty Officer Chad Hart of the Coast Guard station in Duluth said.
"It never was confirmed that there was someone out there," he said.
The search continued this morning. "As far as we know, they're still out there doing their search patterns," Hart said. "We haven't heard anything."
At around noon Sunday two people at the Lakeview Castle restaurant on Scenic Highway 61 saw what they thought might be a person or people trapped on a piece of moving ice, according to the Coast Guard.
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Officials from the Coast Guard, Duluth police, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office converged at the McQuade boat ramp. Using binoculars, they spotted something, but by that time the wind had pushed the ice so far out that the group wasn't sure whether it was a person, or just an item floating on a piece of ice.
"We could see something on the ice. We couldn't confirm what it was," said Petty Officer Jeremy Myers of the Coast Guard's Duluth office.
No boaters had been reported missing Sunday.
Because of the ice in Duluth's harbor, the Coast Guard could not dispatch a search boat, Myers said, which was why the helicopter and plane were called out.
Anyone in the area is asked to call the call the Coast Guard if they see anything.
