Welcome to the story of the world’s first app that reduces the risks of lake ice travel!

Friends,

I am Paul Cooley, the founder of NextGen Environmental Research Inc. and the creator of Ice Time™, and Anglers Leaderboard™. This company and these two apps help make lake ice travel safer and more fun. We are about bringing state-of-the-art technology to the hands of people who love the outdoors.

I am an avid snowmobile rider and angler and have been since I was a kid. Each day on the ice presents a new challenge. Persistent ice movements, open water leads, ridges, avoiding rough ice, and many other hazards resulting from wind and temperature changes. To be situationally aware you have to appreciate ice formation and deformation. Ice deformation creates hazards and is our arch-enemy. When you understand and monitor ice, you become a far more informed rider and angler because you can anticipate hazards independently and plan accordingly. 

During my Ph.D. I mapped the coastal zone of Lake Malawi using Canada’s first Radar satellite. While satellite radar was used in the Arctic to map marine ice then, I puzzled why nobody was imaging freshwater ice because of the history of recreational cold-water immersions and deaths. After that, I carried the satellite radar lake ice monitoring idea in my back pocket for more than a decade.

In 2017 I proposed satellite radar monitoring of lake ice to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the first NextGen project. Jumping forward to 2024 three CSA lake ice projects have been successfully completed, and with support from other federal and provincial innovation funds, too. Ice Time™ is the result. It is the world’s first app that confronts an age-old problem: to make lake ice travel safer. Our goal is to reduce fatal cold-water immersions by 50%.

Ice Time™  is like having a professional ice specialist beside you. Ice Time™ improves your situational awareness by providing near real-time images of ice and hazards using the power of AI to identify and map them. It educates about ice, ice hazards and the software in the Ice Time™ Academy, and connects you to the Ice Time™ community in real-time. With this new tool, you can watch the ice in action and make travel decisions for yourself.  And, you can give or receive help from other riders and anglers in the Ice Time™ tribe when another hand is needed.

Lake ice travel is a personal risk.  Only you are responsible for your safety. Ice Time™ does not replace the due diligence safety practices that are essential. Instead, it is a powerful toolkit that extends your ability to assess risk and to be smart about travel. You are no longer reduced to guesswork at the shoreline. You can even make lake ice travel decisions using credible information from the comfort of your home.

I am thankful for the strong support and critical feedback we have received from avid riders and anglers. It is because of you that we have strived to make something new and meaningful that will save lives, trucks, sleds, and educate the lake ice community in novel ways about what it is we walk and drive on.

This is where the story shifts from us to you. We’ve put a state-of-the-art tool in front of you and for less than the cost of a meal for a family of four at McDonalds. It’s your turn to consider its value and what you mean to the people close to you. With Ice Time™ you have a modern toolkit to help you thrive and become the hero in this story. It is time to join the ice tribe. Fish, ride, and thrive on the ice!