For a long while, Ern Malchow of Lakefield owned and operated a welding repair shop in town, working on just about any piece of farm equipment that needed repairs.
But his was a welding shop, too, and fixing and welding anything that needed his expertise made it the go-to place.
But Malchow made a move in 1990, expanding his business when he built and started selling fish house frames for ice-fishing houses.
“I made just the frames for a number of years, then came up with the Polar Palace Fish House and named the framing for fish houses the Shack Rack,'” he said.
Although Malchow still does some repair work, his main emphasis now is his fish house and framing creations, as well as his trailers.
“I have made a large number of Polar Palace Fish Houses,” he said. “Most of them go to northern Minnesota and the Twin Cities area, but I’ve made fish houses for people in Wisconsin, Illinois, both North and South Dakota and a few of my ice houses are in Iowa.”
Of course, there are a lot of his famous fish houses around the Lakefield area too, as are his original creation, the fish house frames that he now sells in both a winch-on and hydraulic version.
“We developed our own trailer lift system, the Shack Rack, back in 1992 and, after testing it and seeking patent rights to make them, we now have the most dependable unit on the market today and it is available in either the Shack Rack hand-winch version or the hydraulic lift version,” Malchow said. “The winch is easy to operate with the smaller-sized frames and the hydraulic one is our most popular and operates by the moving of a single lever.”
With either version of the Shack Rack, all can build whatever type of portable building they want to put on it from their own ice fishing house, camper or overnight hunting lodge and even a special events unit using the Shack Rack frame as a foundation.
“Some of the really big ones we make are used by our customers as a fish house in the winter, camper in the summer and a hunting lodge in the fall,” Malchow said. “They become an all-in-one unit, replacing not only the fish shack, but also the camper, as well as eliminating the expense of renting a costly hunting lodge.”
Malchow also makes what he markets as his “Road Rack Trailers,” something he started selling back in 1994, the same year his Shack Rack frames were heavily marketed by his E&T Enterprises venture.
“My Road Rack trailers have a variety of uses,” he said. “They work great as a utility trailer on a farm or around town, can be used for just about any commercial application or for more specialized work like display trailers, concessions stands or even mobile show booths.”
And many town folk, as well as farmers, find them just the ticket for hauling lawn mowers, skid loaders, forklifts, tractors or cars.
“Our trailers are safer and stronger than most trailers made,” Malchow said. “Since they are operated by a hydraulic lift system, you don’t need to have the trailer bed tilt or use any ramps to gain access to the trailer.”
Malchow can make his trailers in any size and for any application.
“Our Shack Rack Fish House Frames, Polar Palace Fish Houses and Road Rack Trailers are designed to be user friendly and constructed to withstand the rough conditions our customers buy them for, from pulling down the highway at high speeds to pulling them out on the rough winter ice, as well as around the farm,” he said.